"Does it? As it happens, I was thinking about a revolver."
"Potting burglars, eh? About all the sport you poor devils of Cockneys will get on the First."
"Look here, Hardy, this is uncanny. Where did you spring from?"
"Straight from Euston this afternoon, from Queenstown yesterday morning, before that from the other side of the Rockies."
"That accounts for your amazing get-up."
"Yes; and, by Jove! after a year in a log-hut on the wrong side of a precipice, you're glad to get your feet on London pavement, and smell London smells again. And look there, Ted! There isn't a lovelier sight on God's earth than a well-dressed Englishwoman. Where are we going? How about that revolver?"
Ted had forgotten all about it. Hardy's sane, open-air spirits had infected him so far that he had let himself be dragged at a rapid pace up the King's Road, where their progress attracted considerable attention. As Hardy strode on, with his long swinging legs, he appeared to be scattering the crowd before him.
"Never mind the thing now; it'll keep. How that girl stares! Does she take us for banditti?"
"Not you, you puppy, in that coat and topper. No mistaking you for anything but what you are—the sickly product of an effete civilisation. Don't be frightened, you haven't gone off in the least; you're a little pale, but prettier than you were, if anything."
"I say you ought to be in the bosom of your family."