When Tom Summers found himself on the flat bare expanse of the racecourse, he seemed considerably disappointed, and looked round with dismay at the abandoned prospect before him. On one side lay the river, but that seemed to offer him no consolation; on the other, the town, but on that he had already turned his back. At length, after a careful survey, he saw at about the distance of half a mile, on a rising ground, a little thicket, not much more indeed than a largish clump of trees, and towards that he at once bent his way. The sun by this time had attained considerable height, and more than considerable strength; and when the wayfarer had skirted the racecourse, and toiled across the intervening fields, and up a wooded knoll, he was tired and hot. The outermost edge of shade did not, however, content him. He paused there and looked round to note the farmer's wain, a dot upon the distant turnpike road; the lark singing in high heaven above his head; the man and boy at plough-work three fields off, the one intent on his furrow, the other on his team. And then, having satisfied himself that such human beings as he had seen were unobservant of his actions, and that there were none others within range, he plunged deeper into the little wood, and opening the bag which he carried with a key, drew from it a plain gray suit of morning dress and a soft-felt wideawake. In less time almost than it takes to write, he had divested himself of his sailor's clothes, and of the red wig and beard, all of which he thrust into the bag; then dressing himself in the gray suit, and donning the wideawake, he took the bag in his hand, and left the little wood on the opposite side to that on which he had entered it. The clerk in the cloak-room at the Lime-street station that afternoon was more than usually busy, and consequently more than usually short-tempered. He was ticking off an enormous number of entries in the way-bill, and was well down the third column, when he heard a soft voice from the sliding window, which was open, say: 'I beg your pardon.' 'Seven hundred and twenty-three, barrel of oysters marked X.O.,' muttered the clerk to himself, giving no heed to the interruption. 'Seven hundred and twenty-four, crate of live fowls; seven--' 'I beg your pardon,' said the voice again, and the clerk looked up and found that it belonged to a slim gentleman in a pale gray suit, and with a soft black-felt hat on his head, and carrying a small bag in his hand. 'Two days ago I came by the noon express from Euston,' said the gentleman, 'and booked my portmanteau to Liverpool; but being taken ill, I was compelled to get out at Edge-hill, and so my luggage came on without me. A brown portmanteau, bearing the name of Dunn--shall I have the good luck to find it here?' 'If it is here you will, sir,' growled the clerk, dying to get back to the way-bill. 'Two days ago, you say; brown portmanteau, name of Dunn? Here you are.'