Unconsciously following the bus route, I emerged eventually on Piccadilly, and was jostled and ogled and blessed and cursed with the greatest heartiness. Somewhere near Bond Street I collided heavily with a young man who was trying to negotiate the crowd and at the same time lose nothing of the shop windows' display. "A thousand devils!" I muttered, recoiling from the impact. "A thousand pardons!" he said, raising his hat. The graceful lilt of his voice was peculiarly reminiscent; his smooth brow and silky fair hair were both familiar and elusive. "One moment----" He gazed into my face with a searching look, keeping his hat poised in the air as if the better to concentrate his thoughts. "Not the Pest?" he said. I nodded, and, if the truth be told, felt not a little pleased at the sound of the old _nom d'école_ earned when I was at Westminster. "And how," I said, "is the Blower of Bubbles?" For answer he replaced his hat at a rakish angle and shook my hand with both his for what seemed a full minute, the crowd parting good-naturedly like a wave encircling a rock. "My dear old Pest," he said, "we shall dine together." "I'm sorry, but----" "There is a perfectly vile restaurant half-a-mile from here, that has the best violinist and the worst cook in London." "My dear chap----" "Of all the luck! Think of my running into you on Christmas Eve!" And just then I noticed that we were no longer standing still, but proceeding up a side street, arm-in-arm, while his disengaged hand indicated the passing scene as if it were the most gorgeous bazaar of the Orient. He spoke with extraordinary rapidity, except in uttering certain words, when he would make a slurring pause, as a singer will let a note melt into a pianissimo, then race on again with renewed vigor. It was a fascinating trick of speech, and, added to the subtle inflections of his voice, never failed to startle one into the closest attention. I turned to him once with some remark on my lips, and noticed that his eyes were dancing with merriment. "What is it, Pest?" he cried. "Out with it!" I smiled gloomily; but still it was a smile. "Why," I said, "aren't the lamps in Sloane Square bright like these?" He didn't answer. Probably he knew the truth would have hurt. III What a hole to dine in on Christmas Eve! Such waiters--such guests--such food--such wine! I believe the proprietor owned three such establishments, each, in a triumph of irony, called "Arcadia." The very linen of the waiters drooped disconsolately, and the whole place reeked of cabbage and wet umbrellas. My spirits, which had risen momentarily from their classic depths, sank like the sands of an egg-timer. "My dear fellow," I said, "you can't mean to dine here?" An oily waiter ambled up to us and wrung his hands in a paroxysm of welcome. "Your tabil, Meester Norman," he said in some nondescript foreign dialect, "iss ready."