"I wonder where old Mr Verneede can be?" said the girl, looking round as though to find him lurking amidst the foliage. "It's awful if we've lost him."
"We have his ticket, too," said Leavesley. "He's very likely gone back to the station; if we don't find him there I'll leave his ticket with the station-master."
He rose up, and the daisy-chain round his neck fell all to pieces in ruin to the ground.
They found Mr Verneede waiting for them at the station, smelling of beer, and conversing with the station-master on the weather and the crops.
At Liverpool Street, having seen Miss Lambert into an omnibus (she refused to be seen home, knowing full well the distance from Highgate to Chelsea), Leavesley, filled with a great depression of spirits, went with Verneede and sat in pubs, and smoked clay pipes, and drank beer.
This sorry pastime occupied them till 12.30, when they took leave of each other in the King's Road, Leavesley miserable, and Verneede maudlin.
"She sent me her love," said Mr Verneede, clinging to his companion's hand, and working it like a pump handle. "Bless you—bless you, my boy—don't take any more—Go—bless you."
When Leavesley looked back he saw Mr Verneede apparently trying to go home arm-in-arm with a lamp-post.