"Hate coming here, I suppose?"
"That I do," Bob said, cordially.
Mr. Medlin nodded.
"Not so bad as it looks," he said, and then walked on again, in silence.
Presently there was a break in the houses. They were getting beyond the confines of business London.
"Do you see this little garden?" Mr. Medlin asked, suddenly, in a tone so unlike that in which he had before spoken that Bob quite started.
The lad looked at the little patch of ground, with some stunted shrubs, but could see nothing remarkable in it.
"Yes, I see it, sir," he said.
"That, Bob," Mr. Medlin went on, "--for I suppose you are called Bob--marks the end of all things."
Bob opened his eyes in astonishment, and again examined the little garden.