"Oh--briefly--to conquer the world on the lines laid down by his ancestor, Peter the Great. But the man who sets out to conquer the world always finds his Waterloo sooner or later."
And Jim went home that night feeling very much less under a cloud on his own account, and not unhopeful on Seth's. For this new old friend of his impressed him deeply as one who knew a great deal more than most people, and as the kind of man who, if he took a matter up, would not rest till he attained his end.
But as for Kattie, if she had indeed come to London, he had nothing but fears.
[CHAPTER XXXIX]
OLD SETH GOES HOME
Old Seth had a heart-breaking time of it.
To all intents and purposes he found himself in a foreign country. He wandered bewilderedly here and there, thinking that where the crowds were thickest there would be most chance of finding her he sought. But, to his amazement, the crowds seemed equally thick wherever he went, and every single person seemed to him to be hurrying for his or her life on business that did not admit of a moment's delay.
He lost himself regularly every day. From the moment he loosed from his quiet little harbour of refuge in the morning, till, by means of the address on his card, he found himself eventually and miraculously piloted back there by a 'series of top-hatted policemen, he was simply tossing to and fro on the swirling waves of the mighty whirlpool, without the slightest knowledge of where he was, except that he was in London, and Kattie was somewhere in London too.
He tried to talk to people, policemen and cabmen on the stands, who were the only ones who seemed not to be spending themselves in aimless rushings to and fro. But his uncouth speech was Hebrew to them. At first they grinned and shook their heads. Then, catching what sounded like a rough attempt at English, they tried to understand, but soon gave it up in spite of his woeful face and evident distress, and it was only when at last he wanted to get home, and produced his card, that they were able to assist him.
Fortunately the weather was cold and damp--conditions to which he was accustomed. Hot summer days and the airless, evil-smelling streets would have knocked him over in a week.