The old man had fixed his eyes half absently on the inscription of a gravestone near him; a lean cat springing out between the iron railings seemed to recall his attention, and with a slight sigh he went forward along the narrow street which is called St. James’s Walk.  In a few minutes he had reached the end of it, and found himself facing a high grey-brick wall, wherein, at this point, was an arched gateway closed with black doors.  He looked at the gateway, then fixed his gaze on something that stood just above—­something which the dusk half concealed, and by so doing made more impressive.  It was the sculptured counterfeit of a human face, that of a man distraught with agony.  The eyes stared wildly from their sockets, the hair struggled in maniac disorder, the forehead was wrung with torture, the cheeks sunken, the throat fearsomely wasted, and from the wide lips there seemed to be issuing a horrible cry.  Above this hideous effigy was carved the legend:  ’Middlesex house of detention.’

Something more than pain came to the old man’s face as he looked and pondered; his lips trembled like those of one in anger, and his eyes had a stern resentful gleaming.  He walked on a few paces, then suddenly stopped where a woman was standing at an open door.

‘I ask your pardon,’ he said, addressing her with the courtesy which owes nothing to refined intercourse, ’but do you by chance know anyone of the name of Snowdon hereabouts?’

The woman replied with a brief negative; she smiled at the appearance of the questioner, and, with the vulgar instinct, looked about for someone to share her amusement.

’Better inquire at the ‘ouse at the corner,’ she added, as the man was moving away.  ‘They’ve been here a long time, I b’lieve.’

He accepted her advice.  But the people at the public-house could not aid his search.  He thanked them, paused for a moment with his eyes down, then again sighed slightly and went forth into the gathering gloom.

Less than five minutes later there ran into the same house of refreshment a little slight girl, perhaps thirteen years old; she carried a jug, and at the bar asked for ‘a pint of old six.’  The barman, whilst drawing the ale, called out to a man who had entered immediately after the child: 

’Don’t know nobody called Snowdon about ‘ere, do you, Mr. Squibbs?’

The individual addressed was very dirty, very sleepy, and seemingly at odds with mankind.  He replied contemptuously with a word which, in phonetic rendering may perhaps be spelt ‘Nay-oo.’

But the little girl was looking eagerly from one man to the other; what had been said appeared to excite keen interest in her.  She forgot all about the beer-jug that was waiting, and, after a brief but obvious struggle with timidity, said in an uncertain voice: 

‘Has somebody been asking for that name, sir?’

‘Yes, they have,’ the barman answered, in surprise.  ‘Why?’