'I've knocked a bit about the world, and I wouldn't despise such
a hermitage. D'you think that adventure is found only in the tropics
or among gentry in red shirts? Maybe you're rubbing shoulders
with it at this moment.'

'That's what Kipling says,' he said, his eyes brightening, and he
quoted some verse about 'Romance bringing up the 9.15'.

'Here's a true tale for you then,' I cried, 'and a month from now
you can make a novel out of it.'

Sitting on the bridge in the soft May gloaming I pitched him a
lovely yarn. It was true in essentials, too, though I altered the
minor details. I made out that I was a mining magnate from Kimberley,
who had had a lot of trouble with I.D.B. and had shown up a gang.
They had pursued me across the ocean, and had killed my best friend, and
were now on my tracks.

I told the story well, though I say it who shouldn't. I pictured a
flight across the Kalahari to German Africa, the crackling, parching
days, the wonderful blue-velvet nights. I described an attack on my
life on the voyage home, and I made a really horrid affair of the
Portland Place murder. 'You're looking for adventure,' I cried;
'well, you've found it here. The devils are after me, and the police
are after them. It's a race that I mean to win.'

'By God!' he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, 'it is all
pure Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle.'