The fog choked us.  Perhaps it took away the sense of hunger by filling us as if we had eaten a dinner of soot.  We had no craving to eat until long past the dinner-hour in Temple’s house, and then I would rather have plunged into a bath and a bed than have been requested to sit at a feast; Temple too, I fancy.  We knew we were astray without speaking of it.  Temple said, ‘I wish we hadn’t drunk that champagne.’  It seemed to me years since I had tasted the delicious crushing of the sweet bubbles in my mouth.  But I did not blame them; I was after my father:  he, dear little fellow, had no light ahead except his devotion to me:  he must have had a touch of conscious guilt regarding his recent behaviour, enough to hold him from complaining formally.  He complained of a London without shops and lights, wondered how any one could like to come to it in a fog, and so forth; and again regretted our having drunk champagne in the morning; a sort of involuntary whimpering easily forgiven to him, for I knew he had a gallant heart.  I determined, as an act of signal condescension, to accost the first person we met, male or female, for Temple’s sake.  Having come to this resolve, which was to be an open confession that I had misled him, wounding to my pride, I hoped eagerly for the hearing of a footfall.  We were in a labyrinth of dark streets where no one was astir.  A wretched dog trotted up to us, followed at our heels a short distance, and left us as if he smelt no luck about us; our cajoleries were unavailing to keep that miserable companion.

‘Sinbad escaped from the, pit by tracking a lynx,’ I happened to remark.  Temple would not hear of Sinbad.

‘Oh, come, we’re not Mussulmen,’ said he; ’I declare, Richie, if I saw a church open, I’d go in and sleep there.  Were you thinking of tracking the dog, then?  Beer may be had somewhere.  We shall have to find an hotel.  What can the time be?’

I owed it to him to tell him, so I climbed a lamppost and spelt out the hour by my watch.  When I descended we were three.  A man had his hands on Temple’s shoulders, examining his features.

‘Now speak,’ the man said, roughly.

I was interposing, but Temple cried, ’All right, Richie, we are two to one.’

The man groaned.  I asked him what he wanted.

‘My son!  I’ve lost my son,’ the man replied, and walked away; and he would give no answer to our questions.

I caught hold of the lamp-post, overcome.  I meant to tell Temple, in response to the consoling touch of his hand, that I hoped the poor, man would discover his son, but said instead, ’I wish we could see the Bench to-night.’  Temple exclaimed, ‘Ah!’ pretending by his tone of voice that we had recently discussed our chance of it, and then he ventured to inform me that he imagined he had heard of the place being shut up after a certain hour of the night.

My heart felt released, and gushed with love for him.  ’Very well, Temple,’ I said:  ’then we’ll wait till tomorrow, and strike out for some hotel now.’