Then:--
"You have done well to make a clean breast of it," he said. "Take a
straight tip from me. Keep off the drink!"
X
THE GREAT UNDERSTANDING
It was in the afternoon of this same day--a day so momentous in the
lives of more than one of London's millions--that two travelers might
have been seen to descend from a first-class compartment of the Dover
boat-train at Charing Cross.
They had been the sole occupants of the compartment, and, despite the
wide dissimilarity of character to be read upon their countenances,
seemed to have struck up an acquaintance based upon mutual amiability
and worldly common sense. The traveler first to descend and gallantly to
offer his hand to his companion in order to assist her to the platform,
was the one whom a casual observer would first have noted.
He was a man built largely, but on good lines; a man past his youth, and
somewhat too fleshy; but for all his bulk, there was nothing unwieldy,
and nothing ungraceful in his bearing or carriage. He wore a French
traveling-coat, conceived in a style violently Parisian, and composed of
a wonderful check calculated to have blinded any cutter in Savile Row.
From beneath its gorgeous folds protruded the extremities of severely
creased cashmere trousers, turned up over white spats which nestled
coyly about a pair of glossy black boots.
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