‘Well, well,’ interrupted Michael.  ’Be explicit; you think it’s Uncle Tim?’

‘It might be Uncle Tim,’ insisted Pitman, ’and if it were, and I neglected the occasion, how could I ever took my children in the face?  I do not refer to Mrs Pitman. . .’

‘No, you never do,’ said Michael.

‘. . . but in the case of her own brother returning from Ballarat. . .’ continued Pitman.

‘. . . with his mind unhinged,’ put in the lawyer.

’. . . returning from Ballarat with a large fortune, her impatience may be more easily imagined than described,’ concluded Pitman.

‘All right,’ said Michael, ‘be it so.  And what do you propose to do?’

‘I am going to Waterloo,’ said Pitman, ‘in disguise.’

‘All by your little self?’ enquired the lawyer.  ’Well, I hope you think it safe.  Mind and send me word from the police cells.’

’O, Mr Finsbury, I had ventured to hope—­perhaps you might be induced to—­to make one of us,’ faltered Pitman.

‘Disguise myself on Sunday?’ cried Michael.  ’How little you understand my principles!’

’Mr Finsbury, I have no means of showing you my gratitude; but let me ask you one question,’ said Pitman.  ’If I were a very rich client, would you not take the risk?’

‘Diamond, Diamond, you know not what you do!’ cried Michael.  ’Why, man, do you suppose I make a practice of cutting about London with my clients in disguise?  Do you suppose money would induce me to touch this business with a stick?  I give you my word of honour, it would not.  But I own I have a real curiosity to see how you conduct this interview—­that tempts me; it tempts me, Pitman, more than gold—­it should be exquisitely rich.’  And suddenly Michael laughed.  ‘Well, Pitman,’ said he, ’have all the truck ready in the studio.  I’ll go.’

About twenty minutes after two, on this eventful day, the vast and gloomy shed of Waterloo lay, like the temple of a dead religion, silent and deserted.  Here and there at one of the platforms, a train lay becalmed; here and there a wandering footfall echoed; the cab-horses outside stamped with startling reverberations on the stones; or from the neighbouring wilderness of railway an engine snorted forth a whistle.  The main-line departure platform slumbered like the rest; the booking-hutches closed; the backs of Mr Haggard’s novels, with which upon a weekday the bookstall shines emblazoned, discreetly hidden behind dingy shutters; the rare officials, undisguisedly somnambulant; and the customary loiterers, even to the middle-aged woman with the ulster and the handbag, fled to more congenial scenes.  As in the inmost dells of some small tropic island the throbbing of the ocean lingers, so here a faint pervading hum and trepidation told in every corner of surrounding London.

At the hour already named, persons acquainted with John Dickson, of Ballarat, and Ezra Thomas, of the United States of America, would have been cheered to behold them enter through the booking-office.