cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly

drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading

a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had,

considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finances

become, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and

rusticate somewhere in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in

my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my

mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and

less expensive domicile.

 

On the very day that I had come to this conclusion, I was standing at the

Criterion Bar, when some one tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I

recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me at Barts. The sight

of a friendly face in the great wilderness of London is a pleasant thing indeed

to a lonely man. In old days Stamford had never been a particular crony of mine,

but now I hailed him with enthusiasm, and he, in his turn, appeared to be

delighted to see me. In the exuberance of my joy, I asked him to lunch with me

at the Holborn, and we started off together in a hansom.

 

“Whatever have you been doing with yourself, Watson?” he asked in undisguised

wonder, as we rattled through the crowded London streets. “You are as thin as a

lath and as brown as a nut.”

 

I gave him a short sketch of my adventures, and had hardly concluded it by the

time that we reached our destination.