The Black Bag by Vance, Louis Joseph, 1879-1933

"A 'ard lot, sir," commented the policeman, jerking his helmeted head towards the vanishing four-wheeler.

"Right you are," agreed Kirkwood amiably, still tickled by the knowledge that Mulready had been obliged to pay three times over for the ride that ended in his utter discomfiture. Somehow, Kirkwood had conceived no liking whatever for the man; Calendar he could, at a pinch, tolerate for his sense of humor, but Mulready--! "A surly dog," he thought him.

Acknowledging the policeman's salute and restoring two shillings and a few fat copper pennies to his pocket, he entered the vast and echoing train-shed. In the act, his attention was attracted and immediately riveted by the spectacle of a burly luggage navvy in a blue jumper in the act of making off with a large, folding sign-board, of which the surface was lettered expansively with the advice, in red against a white background:

BOAT-TRAIN LEAVES ON TRACK 3

Incredulous yet aghast the young man gave instant chase to the navvy, overhauling him with no great difficulty. For your horny-handed British working-man is apparently born with two golden aphorisms in his mouth: "Look before you leap," and "Haste makes waste." He looks continually, seldom, if ever, leaps, and never is prodigal of his leisure.

Excitedly Kirkwood touched the man's arm with a detaining hand. "Boat-train?" he gasped, pointing at the board.

"Left ten minutes ago, thank you, sir."

"Wel-l, but...! Of course I can get another train at Tilbury?"

"For yer boat? No, sir, thank you, sir. Won't be another tryne till mornin', sir."

"Oh-h!..."

Aimlessly Kirkwood drifted away, his mind a blank.

Sometime later he found himself on the steps outside the station, trying to stare out of countenance a glaring electric mineral-water advertisement on the farther side of the Euston Road.

He was stranded....

Beyond the spiked iron fence that enhedges the incurving drive, the roar of traffic, human, wheel and hoof, rose high for all the lateness of the hour: sidewalks groaning with the restless contact of hundreds of ill-shod feet; the roadway thundering--hansoms, four-wheelers, motor-cars, dwarfed coster-mongers' donkey-carts and ponderous, rumbling, C.-P. motor-vans, struggling for place and progress. For St. Pancras never sleeps.

The misty air swam luminous with the light of electric signs as with the radiance of some lurid and sinister moon. The voice of London sounded in Kirkwood's ears, like the ominous purring of a somnolent brute beast, resting, gorged and satiated, ere rising again to devour. To devour--

Stranded!...

Distracted, he searched pocket after pocket, locating his watch, cigar- and cigarette-cases, match-box, penknife--all the minutiae of pocket-hardware affected by civilized man; with old letters, a card-case, a square envelope containing his steamer ticket; but no sovereign purse. His small-change pocket held less than three shillings--two and eight, to be exact--and a brass key, which he failed to recognize as one of his belongings.

And that was all. At sometime during the night he had lost (or been cunningly bereft of?) that little purse of chamois-skin containing the three golden sovereigns which he had been husbanding to pay his steamer expenses, and which, if only he had them now, would stand between him and starvation and a night in the streets.

And, searching his heart, he found it brimming with gratitude to Mulready, for having relieved him of the necessity of settling with the cabby.