“But as soon as darkness fell we took long tramps through the city, where the streets were empty of everything but the lamp-posts, and the only sounds were the hollow sounds of our own footsteps upon the pavement.”
“Yes,” Mr. Ferguson interrupted. “One couldn’t choose a better place for exercise than the city of London after dark.”
Paul laughed pleasantly and Mr. Ferguson reflected, “I have never been called a liar in a prettier fashion.”
“On one of these nightly rambles,” Paul resumed, “we turned into a street closed at one end by a stately building of pinnacles and a sloping roof, and windows of richly stained glass. This building was a blaze of light, and in the courtyard in front of it motor-cars and carriages were taking up ladies in bright evening frocks and coats and men with orders upon their breasts.”
Mr. Ferguson nodded his head.
“A dinner at the Guildhall, yes.”
“It was curious to come suddenly out of darkness and silence and emptiness,” Paul Ravenel resumed, “into this gay scene of colour and enjoyment and light. You can imagine how it impressed a child. This was what I wanted. I hated long, empty, echoing streets with chains of lamps stretching ahead. Here I heard to me a sound unknown and divine—I heard women laughing. ‘Oh, father, do let us stay for a moment and look!’ I cried, but my father gripped me by the arm, and strode across the road so swiftly that I had to run to keep up with him. There was the mouth of another street nearly opposite, and it was that street which my father wanted to reach.”
“Yes?” said Mr. Ferguson.
“But a man was walking with a limp from the building along the pavement on the far side of our road. It was a hot night, and he carried his overcoat upon his arm, and I saw that a conspicuous row of miniature medals with their coloured ribbons stretched across his left breast. We reached the kerb when he was only a few yards from us. I felt my father’s hand tremble suddenly upon my arm. I thought that he was on the point of turning away in flight. But since that would have been more noticeable, he just dropped his head so that the brim of his hat shadowed his face and strode swiftly past the man with the medals. That man only gave us a careless glance, and I heard my father draw a sigh of relief. But a few paces on the man with the medals stopped and looked back. Then he called out: ‘Ned! Ned!’ in a startled voice, and began to retrace, as fast as his limp would allow him, his steps towards us.
“My father whispered to me: ‘Take no notice, boy! Walk straight on,’ and in a moment dived into the silence of the street opposite. I turned my head after we had travelled a few yards in our new direction and I saw the man with the medals at the angle of the street peering after us as if he were undecided whether to follow us or not. There the incident ended, but it was—well—significant, wasn’t it?”