“For a man of brains,” he moralised, “even though he be certified as insane, for probably the best of reasons, this London has surely fools enough to provide him with all he needs and more than he deserves. I shall set out with my lantern like a second Diogenes to look for a foolish man.” And so he strolled along again to the first opening southwards. That led him through a region of dingy enough brick by day, but decked now with its string of lamps and bright shop-windows here and there, and kept alive by passing buses and cabs going and coming from the station. Farther on the street grew gloomier, and a dark square with a grove of trees in the middle opened off one side; but, rattle or quiet, flaring shops or sad-looking lodgings, he found it all too fresh and amusing to hurry. “Back to my parish again,” he said to himself, smiling broadly at the drollery of the idea. “If I’m caught to-morrow, I’ll at least have one merry night in my wicked, humorous old charge.” He reached Holborn and turned west in the happiest and most enviable of moods; the very policemen seemed to cast a friendly eye on him; the frosty air, he thought, made the lights burn brighter and the crowd move more briskly than ever he had seen them. Suddenly the sight of a hairdresser’s saloon brought an inspiration. He stroked his beard, twisted his moustaches half regretfully, and then exclaiming, “Exit Mr Beveridge,” turned into the shop. PART II. CHAPTER I. The Baron Rudolf von Blitzenberg sat by himself at a table in the dining-room of the Hôtel Mayonaise, which, as everybody knows, is the largest and most expensive in London. He was a young man of a florid and burly Teutonic type and the most ingenuous countenance. Being possessed of a curious and enterprising disposition, as well as the most ample means, he had left his ancestral castle in Bavaria to study for a few months the customs and politics of England. In the language he was already proficient, and he had promised himself an amusing as well as an instructive visit. But, although he had only arrived in London that morning, he was already beginning to feel an uncomfortable apprehension lest in both respects he should be disappointed. Though his introductions were the best with which the British Ambassador could supply him, they were only three or four in number,—for, not wishing to be hampered with too many acquaintances, he had rather chosen quality than quantity: and now, in the course of the afternoon, he had found to his chagrin that in every case the families were out of town. In fact, so far as he could learn, they were not even at their own country seats. One was abroad, another gone to the seaside to recover from the mumps, or a third paying a round of visits.