outlook over the surrounding country, but at this hour no horizon
was discernible. Buildings near at hand, rude masses of grimy brick,
stood out against a grey confused background; among them rose a
turret which vomited crimson flame. This fierce, infernal glare
seemed to lack the irradiating quality of earthly fires; with hard,
though fluctuating outline, it leapt towards the kindred night, and
diffused a blotchy darkness. In the opposite direction, over towards
Dudley Town, appeared spots of lurid glow. But on the scarred and
barren plain which extends to Birmingham there had settled so thick
an obscurity, vapours from above blending with earthly reek, that
all tile beacons of fiery toil were wrapped and hidden.

Of the waiting travellers, two kept apart from the rest, pacing this
way and that, but independently of each other. They were men of
dissimilar appearance; the one comfortably and expensively dressed,
his age about fifty, his visage bearing the stamp of commerce; the
other, younger by more than twenty years, habited in a way which
made it; difficult to as certain his social standing, and looking
about him with eyes suggestive of anything but prudence or content.
Now and then they exchanged a glance: he of the high hat and caped
ulster betrayed an interest in the younger man, who, in his turn,
took occasion to observe the other from a distance, with show of
dubious recognition.

The trill of an electric signal, followed by a clanging bell,
brought them both to a pause, and they stood only two or three yards
apart. Presently a light flashed through the thickening dusk; there
was roaring, grinding, creaking and a final yell of brake-tortured
wheels. Making at once for the nearest third-class carriage, the man
in the seedy overcoat sprang to a place, and threw himself