“What do you mean, sir?” said the man. “I mean,” said Toole in a still more confidential tone, “what crime have you committed? You need not keep it from me and my friend.” “Crime!” was the indignant answer. “I have committed no crime.” “Come! come!” said Toole, suddenly assuming the air of a cross-examining counsel. “Do not dare to tell me that. You must have committed some crime, you know, or they would never have put you into a dress like that.” Before the unfortunate man had recovered his self-possession we passed on into the Tower itself, and swiftly found ourselves among a party of eager sight-seers in the chamber where the Crown jewels are disposed. It was a woman who, as I remember, was explaining to the eager throng the history of the different articles displayed, and when at the end of a long catalogue, she at last said, “And this is Ann Boleyn’s crown,” Toole, apparently suddenly overcome, burst into a flood of tears and leant against the wall in seemingly uncontrollable grief. “Oh, sir,” inquired the poor woman in distress, “what’s the matter?” “Nothing! nothing!” replied Toole in broken accents. “Don’t mind me, but the fact is I have known the family so long.” Such innocent sallies of almost child-like high spirits count for nothing in the telling, count for nothing, indeed, disassociated from the exuberant good-humour and the laughing, lovable nature of the man himself. Our whole day was spent in innocent adventures of the same kind. We lunched in Billingsgate, where Toole persuaded the aged and greasy waiter that his purpose in visiting the city was to engage him as manager to a fashionable restaurant for fish dinners to be erected on the south bank of the Thames, immediately opposite the Savoy. And then by easy transition we passed on to the Custom House, which Toole had known well when he had been engaged as a clerk in the city; here he dismayed two venerable officials, busily engaged upon ledgers behind the brass grill, by suddenly demanding a brandy and soda, entirely ignoring their attempted explanation that it was not a bar, and vouchsafing--for all answer to their spluttering expostulations--only the careless reply that, if they were out of brandy, a whisky would do equally well.