Words, words, words! everywhere, silly, irresponsible chatter which I heeded as little as a thrush heeds a shower of rain. Steadily, swiftly, certainly, my purpose grew. I got down in the Whitechapel Road, that wide and unlovely thoroughfare, and, feeling hungry, went into a dingy little restaurant partitioned off in boxes. The tablecloth was of stained oil skin, the guests the seediest type of minor clerks, but I do remember that for ninepence I had a little beefsteak and kidney pudding to myself which was as good as anything I have ever eaten. As I went out I saw my neighbor of the omnibus who had spoken so eloquently of freedom, walking by with a little black bag, as in an aimless way I hailed a taxicab from the rank opposite a London hospital and told the man to drive slowly westwards. He did so, and when we came to the Embankment a gleam of afternoon sunshine began to enlighten what had been a leaden day. Thinking a brisk walk from Black Friars to Westminster would help my thoughts, I dismissed the cab and started. It was with an odd little thrill and flutter of the heart that far away westwards, to the left of the Houses of Parliament, I saw three ghostly lines, no thicker than lamp posts, it seemed, springing upwards from nothingness. At Cleopatra's Needle, I felt the want of a cigarette and stopped to light one. At the moment there were few people on the pavement, though the unceasing traffic in the road roared by as usual. I lit the cigarette, put my case back in my pocket, and was about to continue my stroll when I heard some one padding up behind me with obvious purpose. I half turned, and there again I saw the man with the weak mouth and the big mustache. It flashed upon me, for the first time, that I was being followed, had been followed probably during the whole of my wanderings. As I said, there was nobody immediately about, so I turned to rabbit-face and challenged him. "You're following me, my man, why? Out with it or I'll give you in charge." "Yer can't," he said. "This is a free country, freedom is my 'progative as well as yerself, Sir Thomas Kirby. I've done nothing to annoy yer, have I?" I shrugged my shoulders. "But you have been following me." His manner changed at once. "Ever since you left Piccadilly, Sir Thomas, waiting my opportunity. I'm a private inquiry agent by profession, though this job of shadowing you has nothing to do with the office that employs me. I have a young friend in my house who's turned up sudden and mysterious, a young friend I lost sight of many weeks ago. He says you'll come to him at once if I could only get you alone and be certain that no one saw me speak to you. His instructions were to follow you about until such an opportunity as this arose, and all the time I was to be certain that no one else was following you. I have ascertained that all right." He put his head close to mine and I felt his hot breath upon my cheek.