A heavy, deep voice from inside said:

"Right you are."

And with a click we were in the blackness again, and striding
after the striding stranger through a labyrinth of London lanes,
the lights just helping us. It was only five o'clock, but winter
and the fog had made it like midnight.

"This is really an extraordinary walk for the patent-leather
boots," I repeated.

"I don't know," said Basil humbly. "It leads to Berkeley Square."

As I tramped on I strained my eyes through the dusky atmosphere
and tried to make out the direction described. For some ten
minutes I wondered and doubted; at the end of that I saw that
my friend was right. We were coming to the great dreary spaces
of fashionable London--more dreary, one must admit, even than
the dreary plebeian spaces.

"This is very extraordinary!" said Basil Grant, as we turned into
Berkeley Square.

"What is extraordinary?" I asked. "I thought you said it was quite
natural."

"I do not wonder," answered Basil, "at his walking through nasty
streets; I do not wonder at his going to Berkeley Square. But I do