It was past nine o'clock on a chilly autumn evening: not the kind of evening which might tempt anybody to linger under the flaring gas-lights, dimmed by fogginess.
Pollard, in full career across the platform, brought up his truck with a jerk on hearing his own name, then plucked at his cap with an air of delight.
"Mr. Nigel Browning!" he exclaimed.
"To be sure. Whom else would you take me for? Shake hands, Pollard. I've been round the world since I saw you last."
The man's hard palm closed with a grip round the fingers held out to him.
"And you ain't changed, Mr. Nigel. No need for to ask that, though. If you was, you wouldn't be a-shaking hands with me here, like to old days. And the niggers ain't got hold of you, nor none of they cannibals neither."
"Why, no—I've not been enjoying very largely the society of cannibals."
"Well, sir, you've come back anyway a deal stouter and stronger than you was—not as you're stout yet, so to speak, but you was thin and no mistake when you went away. And I do see a difference. I don't know as you ain't taller too."
"Taller after twenty! That would be against all rule. However, I certainly did depart a scarecrow, so perhaps it's admissible to turn up a Hercules. All well at home, Pollard?—Wife and chicks, eh?"
"Yes, sir, thank you. Naught but the old woman's rheumatiz for to grumble at—and she do say it takes a deal o' patience to carry that about with a body."