There is no other phrase so adequate for describing his condition of mind as the old one concerning head and heels. There had rushed on him, not out of the blue, but, what was even more surprising, out of the very dingy sky of Hackney Wick (and Turner Road, at that!), this astonishing young man, keen-eyed, brown-faced, muscular, who had turned out to be a school-fellow of his own, and a school-fellow whose reputation, during the three hours since they had parted, he had swiftly remembered point by point--Guiseley of Drew's--the boy who had thrown off his coat in early school and displayed himself shirtless; who had stolen four out of the six birches on a certain winter morning, and had conversed affably with the Head in school yard with the ends of the birches sticking out below the skirts of his overcoat; who had been discovered on the fourth of June, with an air of reverential innocence, dressing the bronze statue of King Henry VI. in a surplice in honor of the day. And now here he was, and from his dress and the situation of his lodging-house to be reckoned among the worst of the loafing class, and yet talking, with an air of complete confidence and equality of a disreputable young woman--his companion--who was to be rescued from a yet more disreputable companion and restored to her parents in Chiswick. And this was not all--for, as Mr. Parham-Carter informed me himself--there was being impressed upon him during this interview a very curious sensation, which he was hardly able, even after consideration, to put into words--a sensation concerning the personality and presence of this young man which he could only describe as making him feel "beastly queer." * * * * * It seems to have been about this point that he first perceived it clearly--distinguished it, that is to say, from the whole atmosphere of startling and suggesting mystery that surrounded him. He looked at Frank in silence a moment or two.... There Guiseley sat--leaning back in the red leather chair, his cocoa still untouched. He was in a villainous suit that once, probably, had been dark blue. The jacket was buttoned up to his chin, and a grimy muffler surrounded his neck. His trousers were a great deal too short, and disclosed above a yellow sock, on the leg nearest to him, about four inches of dark-looking skin. His boots were heavy, patched, and entirely uncleaned, and the upper toe-cap of one of them gaped from the leather over the instep. His hands were deep in his pockets, as if even in this warm room, he felt the cold. There was nothing remarkable there. It was the kind of figure presented by unsatisfactory candidates for the men's club. And yet there was about him this air, arresting and rather disconcerting....