Looking up from his paper “our friend” adjusted his spectacles and regarded us both with a quizzical expression. “Come in; don’t mind me,” he said at length, as if satisfied with our appearance, and we sat down at the table, my companion on one side, I on the other, the first occupant taking no further notice of us. “I’m going to have a toothful of whisky,” said my fashionably-dressed _vis-à-vis_. “Will you have the same?” I diffidently demurred at the proposal, as all alcoholic beverages were then to me as a sealed book, and in the end a bottle of lemonade was ordered for me. And there I sat, sipping the lemonade and nervously fingering the bundle of notes in my trousers pocket. I had found my friend very agreeable, very pleasant, and very entertaining, and would not have objected to remaining a little longer with him, but that I felt my employer would be expecting my return with the money he had sent me out to collect. Accordingly, drinking up my beverage, I presently rose and said I was afraid I must be going. “Oh, there is no hurry, my boy,” he said, with such cordiality that I sat down again--but it should be only for a couple of minutes, I told myself. “That’s right; make yourself comfortable, and we’ll have another drink in.” I protested that I had had quite sufficient and that I must not linger, as I was expected back. “A few minutes more or less will hardly make any difference,” he remarked, “and, besides, if you will only wait I shall be coming your way, for you know you promised to show me the way to Hope Street.” I am afraid my resolutions about going were somewhat feeble, for he again persuaded me to sit down. Meanwhile the old gentleman at the other end of the narrow table went on reading his paper. He might have had the place to himself for all the notice he took of us. Suddenly my companion ceased speaking to me (the conversation had by some means or other turned on the subject of trains), and diving his hand into a side pocket produced a new railway-carriage key, very bright and very shiny. I wondered what he intended to do with it, and even got so far as speculating upon whether he was a manufacturer of this class of goods, or travelled for the people who made them. Then he tapped the key lightly on the edge of the table, and, addressing the old gentleman, said, politely: “Is this article of any service to you, sir? Excuse the apparent liberty, but I can offer you these keys at the small sum of sixpence each.” I looked in the direction of the old gentleman and saw that he had put his paper on one side and was regarding my companion with a pleasant smile. “I am much obliged to you, sir,” he replied, softly; “but as I very rarely travel I have no use for such a key.”