‘What names are we to take?’ enquired the latter, anxiously adjusting the window-glass spectacles which he had been suffered on this occasion to assume.

‘There’s no choice for you, my boy,’ returned Michael.  ’Bent Pitman or nothing.  As for me, I think I look as if I might be called Appleby; something agreeably old-world about Appleby—­breathes of Devonshire cider.  Talking of which, suppose you wet your whistle? the interview is likely to be trying.’

‘I think I’ll wait till afterwards,’ returned Pitman; ’on the whole, I think I’ll wait till the thing’s over.  I don’t know if it strikes you as it does me; but the place seems deserted and silent, Mr Finsbury, and filled with very singular echoes.’

‘Kind of Jack-in-the-box feeling?’ enquired Michael, ’as if all these empty trains might be filled with policemen waiting for a signal? and Sir Charles Warren perched among the girders with a silver whistle to his lips?  It’s guilt, Pitman.’

In this uneasy frame of mind they walked nearly the whole length of the departure platform, and at the western extremity became aware of a slender figure standing back against a pillar.  The figure was plainly sunk into a deep abstraction; he was not aware of their approach, but gazed far abroad over the sunlit station.  Michael stopped.

‘Holloa!’ said he, ’can that be your advertiser?  If so, I’m done with it.’  And then, on second thoughts:  ‘Not so, either,’ he resumed more cheerfully.  ‘Here, turn your back a moment.  So.  Give me the specs.’

‘But you agreed I was to have them,’ protested Pitman.

‘Ah, but that man knows me,’ said Michael.

‘Does he? what’s his name?’ cried Pitman.

‘O, he took me into his confidence,’ returned the lawyer.  ’But I may say one thing:  if he’s your advertiser (and he may be, for he seems to have been seized with criminal lunacy) you can go ahead with a clear conscience, for I hold him in the hollow of my hand.’

The change effected, and Pitman comforted with this good news, the pair drew near to Morris.

‘Are you looking for Mr William Bent Pitman?’ enquired the drawing-master.  ‘I am he.’

Morris raised his head.  He saw before him, in the speaker, a person of almost indescribable insignificance, in white spats and a shirt cut indecently low.  A little behind, a second and more burly figure offered little to criticism, except ulster, whiskers, spectacles, and deerstalker hat.  Since he had decided to call up devils from the underworld of London, Morris had pondered deeply on the probabilities of their appearance.  His first emotion, like that of Charoba when she beheld the sea, was one of disappointment; his second did more justice to the case.  Never before had he seen a couple dressed like these; he had struck a new stratum.

‘I must speak with you alone,’ said he.

‘You need not mind Mr Appleby,’ returned Pitman.  ‘He knows all.’