He was evidently accustomed to something very like his present position, and there was nothing startlingly new to him in the utter emptiness of his pockets; but it was the first time he had been homeless. He had been in America for some years, having left his native land in a hurry. He had returned a few weeks since, almost penniless, and tried in vain to drift into some means of gaining a livelihood. Every avenue was closed against him, for his past life was a sealed book, and he had no one to speak a good word for him. So he had hung on to existence till his last copper was spent, and now he was without even a shelter for the night. He had been turned out of his lodging that morning, and everything he had had been detained for the four weeks’ rent which he had promised again and again, and which he had never been able to pay. A few papers had been all that he had been allowed to secure from his scanty belongings, and these only because they were of no value to any one but himself. As he hurried round the corner in search of a convenient gateway in which to spend the night, he drew his hands out of his trousers pockets to shake from the brim of his hat a small pool of water which had begun to trickle down his neck. He drew the lining of his pocket up at the same time, and a piece of folded paper fell on the ground. He picked it up, opened it, and read it. It was an old acceptance, torn with lying long in folds and dirty with being carried about. ‘Birnie’s acceptance for £500,’ said Marston, as he read it over. ‘Ten years old, and not worth the paper it’s written on. I wonder how that got in my trousers pocket, instead of being with the other papers! I must have put it in in the hurry. I wonder whether Birnie’s alive or dead! If he’s alive, I hope he’s as badly off as I am—curse him!’ He folded the old acceptance carefully, and put it back in his pocket. ‘Birnie owed me more than this when I left England. By Jove, if I had the thousandth part of it now I should be happy. I could get out of this confounded rain and lie quiet a bit. I wonder what’s become of the old set—if they’ve all gone to the dogs, like I have! Egerton was a queer fish, but he had rich relations. Ralph must have left a lot of money behind him, and Gurth Egerton would have some of it by hook or by crook. I wonder what the upshot of that affair was. Walking along and thinking, with his eyes on the streaming streets, he was suddenly aroused from his reverie by a vigorous ‘Hi, my man!’ A carriage, evidently a doctor’s brougham, was drawn up in the middle of the roadway, and a gentleman was leaning out of the carriage window, and shouting at him to arrest his attention. ‘Hi, my man!’ said the gentleman, peering through the fog, as Marston looked up, ‘can you tell me which is Little Queer Street about here? This fog makes all the streets look alike.’ ‘No, I can’t,’ answered Marston; ‘I’m a stranger myself.’