“Hm!” said Mr. Townshend thoughtfully. “You have an odd idea of romance, Charles. Romance! And I don’t, as a general rule, believe in apparitions. Hm! Have you rung up H---- to tell him of the reappearance of this remarkably unpleasant youth?” “And he laughed me to scorn! Was ready, in fact, to lay a pony against Raphael’s being within a thousand miles of London or England.” “You never know,” said Mr. Townshend thoughtfully. “Never know what, Hilary?” “Where you are,” said Mr. Townshend thoughtfully. “With Jews.” It was on the night following this conversation that the Admiral, on emerging from the Celibates Club, made an astonishing suggestion to Hunt the commissionaire. “Hunt,” says Sir Charles, “do you mind walking with me down to the Piccadilly corner? I will know then that I am actually moving and not just standing here and thinking I’m moving. You see my point, Hunt?” “Certainly, Sir Charles. I quite understand.” “I’m glad someone does!” sighed our gentleman. The commissionaire with the lined face, whose own antipathy to wine in his youth had not been insuperable, could sympathise with the Admiral’s probable condition, while admiring the correct address with which, as became a gentleman of the sea, he bore his suffering. “See any Jews about, Hunt?” the Admiral asked as they came to the Piccadilly corner. “Not definitely, Sir Charles. But a couple of Rolls-Royces have just passed. Good-night, Sir Charles.” “Good-night, Hunt.” Those were the last words the ancient commissionaire was ever to hear from his good friend the Admiral. For as Sir Charles made to cross Piccadilly from Albemarle Street to St. James’s Street he heard that “whizz” behind him. He had been expecting it, but it startled him. He half-turned and jumped sideways, colliding with the bonnet of a fast-moving car.