Old Sportsman. "Just trying to keep things going till the lads come back again."
THE SEARCH FOR PADDINGTON.
I do not say that the expedition I propose to describe was accompanied by any very great risk. The streets, of course, were dark and the taxis and motor-buses were quite up to the usual average in number and well above it in speed. Still, when your mind is full of stories of shrapnel and Black Marias, you feel able to affront motor vehicles, even in darkened streets, with a feeling of comparative security. It is not so much danger as mystery that makes this story remarkable.
There were two of us, and we found ourselves taking tea in the N.W. district, that is to say in one of those parts (there are millions of them) which lie about the Abbey Road. One of us had knitted belts for soldiers; another knew a hero who had received the D.S.O., and all of us had been brought into close connection with Belgian refugees whose cheerful courage under terrible suffering formed the burden of our talk. Not to know a Belgian in these days is a mark of social outlawry, and you cannot know them without admiring them. The fire was warm, the room was comfortable, and the minutes ticked themselves away in the usual place on the mantelpiece.
"How long," said one of us, "will it take us to walk from here to Paddington?"
"To walk?" said our hostess in a tone of mild surprise.
"Yes," I said, "to walk. We are the ones for adventure. We are country folk, and we don't get a chance of a walk in St. John's Wood every day."
"I don't want to hurry you," said our hostess, "but if you really want to walk you must start at once."