"Of course they weren't! But they might have been."
"Well, it would have proved that people are best away from the seaside. Not that any further proof is necessary. Now, good-bye, my dear; I must get back to my work."
That afternoon Julius Bradshaw went on a business mission to Cornhill, and was detained in the city till past five o'clock. It was then too late to return to the office, as six was the closing hour; so he decided on the Twopenny Tube to Lancaster Gate, the nearest point to home. There was a great shouting of evening papers round the opening into the bowels of the earth at the corner of the Bank, and Julius's attention was caught by an unearthly boy with a strange accent.
"'Mail and Echo,' third edition, all the latest news for a 'apeny. Fullest partic'lars in my copies. Alderman froze to death on the Halps. Shocking neglect of twins. 'Oxton man biles his third wife alive. Cricket this day—Surrey going strong. More about heroic rescue from drowning at St. Senna's. Full and ack'rate partic'lars in my copies only. Catch hold!..." Julius caught hold, and thought the boy amusing. Conversation followed, during cash settlements.
"Who's been heroically rescued?"
"Friend of mine—young lady—fished her governor out—got drownded over it herself, and was brought to. 'Mail' a 'apeny; torkin' a penny extra! Another 'apeny." Julius acquiesced, but felt entitled to more talking.
"Where was it?"
"St. Senna's, where they make the lectury—black stuff.... Yes, it was a friend o' mine, mister, so I tell you, and no lies! Miss Rosalind Nightingale. I see her in the fog round Piccadilly way.... No, no lies at all! Told me her name of her own accord, and went indoors." Julius would have tried to get to the bottom of this if he had not been so taken aback by it, even at the cost of more pence for conversation; but by the time he had found that his informant had certainly read the paragraph, or at least mastered Sally's name right, the boy had vanished.
Of course, he was the boy with the gap in his teeth that she had seen in the fog when Colonel Lund was dying. We can only hope that his shrewdness and prudence in worldly matters have since brought him the success they deserve, as his disappearance was final.