"That's as may be," said my seedy friend, "but 'e 'adn't a brass farthing this morning, and come to that, Sir Thomas, if you'd got into another blinking taxi, you'd have snookered me!"
"Where do you live?" I asked impatiently.
"Not far from where you 'ad your lunch, Sir Thomas. 15, Imperial Mansions, Royal Road, Stepney."
"It's a magnificent address," I said, as I held out my stick for a cab.
"It's a block o' workmen's buildings, reely," he replied gloomily, "and in the thick of the Chinese quarter, which makes it none too savory. But an Englishman's house is his castle and he has the 'progative to call it what he likes."
Back east we went again and in half an hour I was mounting interminable stone steps to a door nearly at the top of "Imperial Mansions," which my guide, who during our drive had introduced himself to me as Mr. Herbert Sliddim, announced as his home. In a dingily furnished room, sitting on a molting, plush sofa I saw the curious little man to whom I had so taken months ago. He was shabby almost to beggary. His face was pale and worn, which gave him an aspect of being much older than I had imagined him. But his irrepressible ears stood out as of yore and his eyes were not dimmed.
"Hallo," I said, "glad to see you, Mr. Rolston, though you've neglected us at the office for a long time. Your arrears of salary have been mounting up."
His hand was trembling as I gripped it.
"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said, "do you really mean that I am still on the staff?"
"Of course you are, my dear boy."