to be hoped,” I observed to Tom, and paying no attention whatever to Emily Purvis, who I knew was smiling on the other side of him, “that we shall meet no more objectionable characters before we get safely in.” 

 “They’re friends of yours, my dear.” 

 This was Emily. 

 “I don’t see how you make that out, seeing that I never saw them before, and never want to again.” 

 “Some of us have more friends than we know, my love.” Her love! “We’ve seen four of yours already; I shouldn’t be surprised if we saw another still before we’re in.” 

 As it happened, in a manner of speaking, it turned out that she was right; though, of course, to speak of the creature we encountered, even sarcastically, as a friend of mine, would be absurd. We were going along the Fenton Road. As we were passing a street, which branched off upon our right, there popped out of it, for all the world as if he had been waiting for us to come along, a man in a long black coat, reaching nearly to his heels, and a felt hat, which was crammed down so tight, that it almost covered his face as well as his head. I thought at first he was a beggar, or some object of the tramp kind, because he fell in at our side, and moved along with us, as some persistent beggars will do. But one glance at what could be seen of his features was sufficient to show that he was something more out of the common than that. He had a round face; almond-shaped eyes which looked out of narrow slits; a flat nose; a mouth which seemed to reach from ear to ear. There was no mistaking that this was a case of another ugly foreigner. The consciousness that he was near made me shudder; as he trudged along beside us I went uncomfortable all over. 

 “Go away! Make him go away!” I said to Tom. 

 Tom stood still. 

 “Now then, off you go! We’ve nothing for you. The sooner you try it off on somebody else, the less of your valuable time you’ll waste.” 

 Tom took him for a beggar. But he was wrong, and I was right; the man was not a beggar. 

 “Which is little lady?” 

 I don’t pretend that was exactly what he said. Thank goodness, I am English, and I know no language but my own, and that is quite enough for me, so it would be impossible for me to reproduce precisely a foreign person’s observations; but that is 

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