It is fortunate that the affair should have happened to Mr. Ralph Wyndham Trevor and be told by him, for Mr. Trevor is a scholar of some authority. It is in a spirit of almost ominous premonition that he begins the tale, telling how he was walking slowly up Davies Street one night when he caught a cab. It need scarcely be said that Davies Street owes its name to that Mary Davies, the heiress, who married into the noble house of Grosvenor. That was years and years ago, of course, and is of no importance whatsoever now; but it may be of interest to students. It was very late on a winter’s night, and Mr. Trevor was depressed, for he had that evening lost a great deal more than he could afford at the card game of auction bridge. Davies Street was deserted; and the moon and Mr. Trevor walked alone towards Berkeley Square. It was not the sort of moon that Mr. Trevor remembered having seen before. It was, indeed, the sort of moon one usually meets only in books or wine. Mr. Trevor was sober. Nothing happened, Mr. Trevor affirms, for quite a while: he just walked; and, at that corner where Davies Street and Mount Street join together the better to become Berkeley Square, stayed his walking upon an idea that he would soothe his depression with the fumes of a cigarette. His cigarette-case, however, was empty. All London, says Mr. Trevor, appeared to be empty that night. Berkeley Square lay pallid and desolate: looking clear, not as though with moonlight, but with dead daylight; and never a voice to put life into the still streets, never a breeze to play with the bits of paper in the gutters or to sing among the dry boughs of the trees. Berkeley Square looked like nothing so much as an old stage property that no one had any use for. Mr. Trevor had no use at all for it; and became definitely antagonistic to it when a taxicab crawled wretchedly across the waste white expanse and the driver, a man in a Homburg hat of green plush, looked into his face with a beseeching look. “Taxi, sir?” he said. Mr. Trevor says that, not wanting to hurt the man’s feelings, he just looked another way. “Nice night, sir,” said the driver miserably, “for a drive in an ’ackney-carriage.” “I live,” said Mr. Trevor with restraint, “only a few doors off. So hackney-carriage to you.” “No luck!” sighed the driver and accelerated madly away even as Mr. Trevor changed his mind, for would it not be an idea to drive to the nearest coffee-stall and buy some cigarettes? This, however, he was not to do, for there was no other reply to his repeated call of “Taxi!” but certain heavy blows on the silence of Davies Street behind him. “Wanting a taxi, sir?” said a voice which could only belong to a policeman. “Certainly not,” said Mr. Trevor bitterly. “I never want a taxi. But now and then a taxi-driver thrusts himself on me and pays me to be seen in his cab, just to give it a tone. Next question.” “Ho!” said the policeman thoughtfully. “I beg your pardon?” said Mr. Trevor.