"It is really kind of you to have me here, Mr. Dyson; the fact is that the interests at issue are far too serious to be discussed in a bar, where, as you found for yourself, there may be listeners, voluntary or involuntary, on each side. I think the remark I heard you make was something about the oddity of an individual going about London in deadly fear of a young man with spectacles." "Yes, that was it." "Well, would you mind confiding to me the circumstances that gave rise to the reflection?" "Not in the least; it was like this." And he ran over in brief outline the adventure in Oxford Street, dwelling on the violence of Mr. Wilkins's gestures, but wholly suppressing the tale told in the café. "He told me he lived in constant terror of meeting this man; and I left him when I thought he was cool enough to look after himself," said Dyson, ending his narrative. "Really," said Mr. Burton. "And you actually saw this mysterious person." "Yes." "And could you describe him?" "Well, he looked to me a youngish man, pale and nervous. He had small black side whiskers, and wore rather large spectacles." "But this is simply marvellous! You astonish me. For I must tell you that my interest in the matter is this. I am not in the least in terror of meeting a dark young man with spectacles, but I shrewdly suspect a person of that description would much rather not meet me. And yet the account you give of the man tallies exactly. A nervous glance to right and left--is it not so? And, as you observed, he wears prominent spectacles, and has small black whiskers. There cannot be surely two people exactly identical--one a cause of terror, and the other, I should imagine, extremely anxious to get out of the way. But have you seen this man since?" "No, I have not; and I have been looking out for him pretty keenly. But, of course, he may have left London, and England too for the matter of that."