S I ate my solitary dinner before starting upon my expedition to Mr. Hankey's house, I began to think less enthusiastically of the adventure. Here was I; comfortable in my hotel, though, I admit, rather lonely; safe, so far, and apparently suspected by none to be other than the blameless Bunyan. Besides, now that I could find a friend for the seeking, my loneliness suddenly diminished. Also I was buoyed by the thought that I was a real adventurer, a romantic exile, as much so, in fact, as Prince Charles of Scotland or my own beloved king. Now I was to knock upon the window of a house that might be either number 114 or 115, and give myself blindfold to strangers.
Yet on second thoughts I reflected that I knew nothing of English laws or English ways. Was I not in “perfidious Albion,” and might I not be handed over to the French government in defiance of all treaties, in order to promote the insidious policy of Chamberlain? Yes, I should go, after all, and I drank to the success of my adventure in a bottle of wine that sent me forth to the station in as gay a spirit as any gallant could wish.
I had made cautious inquiries, asking of different servants at the hotel, and I had little difficulty in making my way by train as far as the suburb in which Mr. Hankey lived. There I encountered the first disquieting circumstance. Inquiring of a policeman, I found there was no such place as George Road, but a St. George's Road was well known to him. If F. II had been so inaccurate in one statement, might he not be equally so in another?
I may mention here that the name of this road is my own invention. The mistake was a similar one to that I have narrated. In all cases I have altered the names of my friends and their houses, as these events happened so recently that annoyance might be caused, for the English are a reticent nation, and shrink from publicity as M. Zola did from oblivion.
Up an immensely long and very dark road I went, studying the numbers of the houses on either side, and here at once a fresh difficulty presented itself. In an English suburb it is the custom to conceal the number provided by the municipal authorities, and decorate the gates instead with a fanciful or high-sounding title. Thus I passed “Blenheim Lodge,” “Strathcory,” “Rhododendron Grove,” and many other such residences, but only here and there could I find a number to guide me. By counting from 84, I came at last upon two houses standing with their gates close together that must either be 114 and 115, or 115 and 116. I could not be sure which, nor in either case did I know whether the one or the other sheltered the conspiring Hankey. The gate on the left was labelled “Chickawungaree Villa,” that on the right “Mount Olympus House.” In the house I could see through the trees that all was darkness, and the gate was so shabby as to suggest that no one lived there. In the villa, on the contrary, I saw two or three lighted windows. I determined to try the villa.
The drive wound so as to encircle what appeared in the darkness to be a tennis-court and an arbor, and finally emerged through a clump of trees before a considerable mansion. And here I was confronted by another difficulty. My directions said, knock upon the third window. But there were three on either side of the front door, and then how did I know that Hankey might not prefer me to knock upon his back or his side windows? My friend F. II might be a martyr and a patriot; but business-like? No.
“Blind fortune is the goddess to-night,” I said to myself, and with that I tapped gently upon the third window from the door counting towards the right. I have often since consoled myself by thinking that I should have exhibited no greater intuition had I counted towards the left.