Now came the rush of early City-bound men, season-ticket holders, who had travelled by the London and South Western line from all parts of Surrey served by it. They came pelting down the inclines as if their lives depended upon catching a particular train. Most of them carried neat hand-bags, suggestive of legal documents or company prospectuses, and nearly all had a morning paper. The bulk of them were well dressed, with an indefinable air indicative of the suburban resident. Mrs. Rosamond found them exceedingly pleasant, and was soon chatting with a military-looking gentleman, irreproachably groomed, with a lined and shrewd face, and old enough to be her father. He was, in fact, an eminent solicitor in Tower Royal, Cannon Street, who, hearing of her adventures, appeared to sympathise very deeply. “A little _too_ deeply,” said her husband, on hearing her narrative, not that he was distrustful or jealous, but he preferred to do most of the sympathising himself. The man of law tried to be facetious, and in explaining at some length the difference between metropolitan “tubes” and the “Underground,” so confused Mrs. Rosamond that she ended by thinking they were one and the same thing--a fatal error on her part, as we shall see. Dilating upon the subject, and upon the trials she had endured that morning, he remarked that he was sure her friends and the world in general would be great losers were so pleasant and vivacious a lady as herself to remain underground. At which fair Rosamond smiled--she had beautiful teeth, and a smile became her; but she grew somewhat reserved in manner when he insisted upon escorting her along the right subway, and felt decidedly relieved when he courteously left her on the pavement at the “Poultry,” by Mappin and Webb’s. It was getting on towards eleven o’clock, and Mistress Rosamond, who, beyond a cup of coffee hastily swallowed before she started, had tasted nothing for six hours, began to feel faint, experiencing that distressing sensation which makes one think the ground is about to rise up and strike one, and that hearing and vision are about to fail. She _must_ have something to eat and drink, but _where?_ Dimly she recalled how in the old days a very dear brother, who knew his London well, was fond of expatiating upon the merits of certain reliable places in the City where the inner man could be most satisfactorily refreshed--Birch’s, Sweeting’s, Pimm’s in the “Poultry.” Why, she was actually standing in the “Poultry”! So, following the curt, but respectful, directions of a civic policeman, who must have been at least six feet two inches in his stockings, she, without crossing the road, easily discovered the haven of refuge in question, and being shown up to the ladies’ dining-room, sat down at a table near a window which looked upon busy Cheapside.