"You see, I thought he might down upon me with the extortion dodge, and hand me over to a bobby. But there's no bobbies where he is now; he couldn't ring the bell and send out that sleek-looking vally, and have me in Vine Street in a brace of shakes. He's down in the country ever so far away. I called at Eaton Place to-day, and they gave me his address." "And how do you mean to get at him? Not by writin'? Don't trust your fist on paper." "Teach your grandmother, Griffiths! How do I mean to get at him? Why, by paying one of those yellow-boys to a booking-clerk at 6.30 to-morrow morning, and going down by the Great-Western parliamentary to Torquay, which is close by the swell's place." "And then?" "Then I shall put up at some quiet crib, and go over the next morning and take him on the bounce--just as I did before." "And suppose he shows fight and won't part?" "Then I must send up a line to you, and you must get up a friendly lead, or something of that kind, and work me back to town." "And you'll chance all that?" "I'd chance a mile more than that for such stakes, where there's no knockin' about or head-punchin' business, Griffiths. I've not got what they call animal courage, which means I don't like being hurt. Some people do, I suppose, and they have animal courage. Now, let's settle where I'm to write to you, and all the rest of the business." Mr. Effingham spoke thus cheerily, and seemed thoroughly determined on his undertaking and confident of his success, as he sat, late at night, in a warm brilliantly-lit tavern-parlour, with the odours of tobacco and hot spirituous drinks fragrant to him floating pleasantly about. He took quite another view of the subject when he turned out between five and six the next morning into a bald blank street, swept by torrents of rain, in which no one was visible but the policeman and the few vagrants huddling round the early-breakfast stall at the corner. Mr. Effingham wrapped himself up as best he might in his fifteen-shilling pea-jacket, and under cover of a big gingham umbrella, borrowed from his landlady, made the best fight he could against the wind and the rain, which, however, had so far the best of it that he was tolerably damp by the time he reached the Paddington station.