NUMBER 320 WARDOUR STREET.


The rear-guard of London's great army of clerks had already vanished in
the city, and the hour was drawing near to eleven, when Victor Nevill
shook off his lassitude sufficiently to get out of bed. A cold tub
freshened him, and as he dressed with scrupulous care, choosing his
clothes from a well-filled wardrobe, he occasionally walked to the
window of his sitting-room and looked down on the narrow but lively
thoroughfare of Jermyn street. It was a fine morning, with the scent of
spring in the air, and the many colors of the rumbling 'busses glistened
like fresh paint in the sunlight.

His toilet completed, Victor Nevill pressed an electric bell, in answer
to which there presently appeared, from some mysterious source
downstairs, a boy in buttons carrying a tray on which reposed a small
pot of coffee, one of cream, a pat of butter, and a couple of crisp
rolls. Nevill ate his breakfast with the mechanical air of one who is
doing a tiresome but necessary thing, meanwhile consulting a tiny
memorandum-book, and counting over a handful of loose gold and silver.
Then he put on his hat and gloves, looked at the fit of his gray
frock-coat in the glass, and went into the street. At Piccadilly Circus
he bought a _boutonniere_, and as he was feeling slightly rocky after a
late night at card-playing, he dropped into the St. James. He emerged
shortly, fortified by a brandy-and-soda, and sauntered westward along
the Piccadilly pavement.

A typical young-man-about-town, an indolent pleasure-lover, always
dressed to perfection and flush with money--such was Victor Nevill in
the opinion of the world. For aught men knew to the contrary, he thrived