“I want to speak to you seriously.  Do you happen to know where Erith is?”

“No, Frank.”

“It is a little landing place on the Thames,” I went on, “not many miles away:  it can be reached by a fast pair of horses and a brougham in a very short time.  There at Erith is a steam yacht ready to start at a moment’s notice; she has steam up now, one hundred pounds pressure to the square inch in her boilers; her captain’s waiting, her crew ready—­a greyhound in leash; she can do fifteen knots an hour without being pressed.  In one hour she would be free of the Thames and on the high seas—­(delightful phrase, eh?)—­high seas indeed where there is freedom uncontrolled.

“If one started now one could breakfast in France, at Boulogne, let us say, or Dieppe; one could lunch at St. Malo or St. Enogat or any place you like on the coast of Normandy, and one could dine comfortably at the Sables d’Olonne, where there is not an Englishman to be found, and where sunshine reigns even in May from morning till night.

“What do you say, Oscar, will you come and try a homely French bourgeois dinner to-morrow evening at an inn I know almost at the water’s edge?  We could sit out on the little terrace and take our coffee in peace under the broad vine leaves while watching the silver pathway of the moon widen on the waters.  We could smile at the miseries of London and its wolfish courts shivering in cold grey mist hundreds of miles away.  Does not the prospect tempt you?”

I spoke at leisure, tasting each delight, looking for his gladness.

“Oh, Frank,” he cried, “how wonderful; but how impossible!”

“Impossible! don’t be absurd,” I retorted.  “Do you see those lights yonder?” and I showed him some lights at the Park gate on the top of the hill in front of us.

“Yes, Frank.”

“That’s a brougham,” I said, “with a pair of fast horses.  It will take us for a midnight visit to the steam yacht in double-quick time.  There’s a little library on board of French books and English; I’ve ordered supper in the cabin—­lobster a l’Americaine and a bottle of Pommery.  You’ve never seen the mouth of the Thames at night, have you?  It’s a scene from wonderland; houses like blobs of indigo fencing you in; ships drifting past like black ghosts in the misty air, and the purple sky above never so dark as the river, the river with its shifting lights of ruby and emerald and topaz, like an oily, opaque serpent gliding with a weird life of its own....  Come; you must visit the yacht.”

I turned to him, but he was no longer by my side.  I gasped; what had happened?  The mist must have hidden him; I ran back ten yards, and there he was leaning against the railing, hung up with his head on his arm shaking.

“What’s the matter, Oscar?” I cried.  “What on earth’s the matter?”

“Oh, Frank, I can’t go,” he cried, “I can’t.  It would be too wonderful; but it’s impossible.  I should be seized by the police.  You don’t know the police.”