I remembered him at once.  He was a fairly well known politician—­an old-fashioned member of the Liberal Party, with whose name I had been more or less acquainted all my life.  I had never actually met him in the old days, but I had seen one or two photographs and caricatures of him, and this no doubt explained my vague recollection of his features.

For just a moment I remained silent, struggling against a strong impulse to laugh.  There was something delightfully humorous in the thought of my sitting in a first-class carriage exchanging cheerful confidences with a distinguished politician, while Scotland Yard and the Home Office were racking their brains over my disappearance.  It seemed such a pity I couldn’t hand him back a card of my own just for the fun of watching his face while he read it.

MR. NEIL LYNDON Late of His Majesty’s Prison, Princetown.

Collecting myself with an effort, I covered my apparent confusion with a slight bow.

“It was very stupid of me not to have recognized you from your pictures,” I said.

This compliment evidently pleased the old boy, for he beamed at me in the most gracious fashion.

“You see now, sir,” he said, “why it would be quite impossible for me to discuss the matter in question.”

I bowed again.  I didn’t see in the least, but he spoke as if the point was so obvious that I thought it better to let the subject drop.  I could only imagine that he must be holding some official position, the importance of which he probably overrated.

We drifted off into the discussion of one or two other topics; settling down eventually to our respective newspapers.  I can’t say I followed mine with any keen attention.  My brain was too much occupied with my own affairs to allow me to take in very much of what I read.  I just noticed that we were engaged in a rather heated discussion with Germany over the future of Servia, and that a well-meaning but short-sighted Anarchist had made an unsuccessful effort to shoot the President of the American Steel Trust.

Of my own affairs I could find no mention, beyond a brief statement to the effect that I was still at liberty.  There was not even the usual letter from somebody claiming to have discovered my hiding-place, and for the first time since my escape I began to feel a little neglected.  It was evident that as a news topic I was losing something of my first freshness.

The last bit of the journey from Maidenhead onwards seemed to take us an unconscionably long time.  A kind of fierce restlessness had begun to get hold of me as we drew nearer to London, and I watched the fields and houses flying past with an impatience I could hardly control.

We rushed through Hanwell and Acton, and then suddenly the huge bulk of Wormwood Scrubbs Prison loomed up in the growing dusk away to the right of the line.  It was there that I had served my “separates”—­those first ghastly six months of solitary confinement which make even Princetown or Portland a welcome and agreeable change.