good it could do him now!) as speedily as possible. So, sending a chance
passer-by into the main street for a cab, I placed him into it as soon
as it came, and there being nobody else to go, got in with him myself,
telling the driver at the same time to take us to the nearest hospital.

"Is this your rug, captain?" asked a bystander just as we were driving
off.

"Not mine," I answered somewhat roughly. "You don't suppose I go
about at this time of night with Turkey carpets under my arm, do you?
It belongs to this old chap here who has just dropped out of the skies
on to his head; chuck it on top and shut the door!" And that rug,
the very mainspring of the startling things which followed, was thus
carelessly thrown on to the carriage, and off we went.

Well, to be brief, I handed in that stark old traveller from nowhere at
the hospital, and as a matter of curiosity sat in the waiting-room while
they examined him. In five minutes the house-surgeon on duty came in
to see me, and with a shake of his head said briefly--

"Gone, sir--clean gone! Broke his neck like a pipe-stem. Most
strange-looking man, and none of us can even guess at his age. Not a
friend of yours, I suppose?"

"Nothing whatever to do with me, sir. He slipped on the pavement and
fell in front of me just now, and as a matter of common charity I brought
him in here. Were there any means of identification on him?"

"None whatever," answered the doctor, taking out his notebook and,
as a matter of form, writing down my name and address and a few brief