fellows, all cyclists, and indeed not altogether unlike myself. It was
after my bacon and eggs that I found on my way a place for a "wash and
brush up, tuppence."

"Traveller, sir?" inquired the publican, in response to my knock and
peering cautiously out at his door. For it was Sunday, after three
o'clock in the afternoon and not yet six; and to obtain refreshment at
a public house at that hour one must be a "traveller over three miles'
journey." "I'm a traveller all the way from the U.S.A.," said I.

I stood my battered shilling ash stick in a corner and looked out again
from my window over the old red roofs and at the back of the house
where he dwelt who when the Queen had commanded his presence said, "I'm
an old man, ma'am, and I'll take a seat." When Annie, the maid, had
brought my "shaving water, sir," in a kind of a tin sprinkling can and
when I had used it I took up my Malacca town cane and went out to see
how old Father Thames was coming on.

I thought I would buy some writing paper and I went into a drug store
kind of a place. "I see you are an American, sir," said the shopman.
"This is a chemist's shop," he explained; "you get paper at the
stationer's, just after the turning, at the top of the street."

Hurrying for my passport, I inquired as to the location of such and
such a street--whatever the name of it is--where, I understood, the
place was where this was to be had. "Ah!" said he whom I addressed,
"you want the American Consul-General."