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

He bowed gratefully to the lions, in view of their tolerant interest in his soliloquy, and set off very suddenly round the square and up St. Martin's Lane, striking across town as directly as might be for St. Pancras Station. It would undoubtedly be a long walk, but cabs were prohibited by his straitened means, and the busses were all abed and wouldn't be astir for hours.

He strode along rapidly, finding his way more through intuition than by observation or familiarity with London's geography--indeed, was scarce aware of his surroundings; for his brain was big with fine imagery, rapt in a glowing dream of knighterrantry and chivalric deeds.

Thus is it ever and alway with those who in the purity of young hearts rush in where angels fear to tread; if these, Kirkwood and his ilk, be fools, thank God for them, for with such foolishness is life savored and made sweet and sound! To Kirkwood the warp of the world and the woof of it was Romance, and it wrapped him round, a magic mantle to set him apart from all things mean and sordid and render him impregnable and invisible to the haunting Shade of Care.

Which, by the same token, presently lost track of him entirely, and wandered off to find and bedevil some other poor devil. And Kirkwood, his eyes like his spirit elevated, saw that the clouds of night were breaking, the skies clearing, that the East pulsed ever more strongly with the dim golden promise of the day to come. And this he chose to take for an omen--prematurely, it may be.

IX

AGAIN "BELOW BRIDGE"; AND BEYOND

Kirkwood wasted little time, who had not much to waste, were he to do that upon whose doing he had set his heart. It irked him sore to have to lose the invaluable moments demanded by certain imperative arrangements, but his haste was such that all was consummated within an hour.

Within the period of a single hour, then, he had ransomed his luggage at St. Pancras, caused it to be loaded upon a four-wheeler and transferred to a neighboring hotel of evil flavor but moderate tariff, where he engaged a room for a week, ordered an immediate breakfast, and retired with his belongings to his room; he had shaved and changed his clothes, selecting a serviceable suit of heavy tweeds, stout shoes, a fore-and-aft cap and a negligee shirt of a deep shade calculated at least to seem clean for a long time; finally, he had devoured his bacon and eggs, gulped down his coffee and burned his mouth, and, armed with a stout stick, set off hotfoot in the still dim glimmering of early day.

By this time his cash capital had dwindled to the sum of two pounds, ten shillings, eight-pence, and would have been much less had he paid for his lodging in advance. But he considered his trunks ample security for the bill, and dared not wait the hour when shopkeepers begin to take down shutters and it becomes possible to realize upon one's jewelry. Besides which, he had never before been called upon to consider the advisability of raising money by pledging personal property, and was in considerable doubt as to the right course of procedure in such emergency.