After the first start, the rapidity of his collapse was appalling.  The seclusion of the first-class carriage to which his ticket entitled him, and which his somewhat peculiar toilet certainly rendered advisable, was suddenly immensely distasteful.  He bought Tit-bits and Ally Sloper at the bookstall, squeezed his way into a crowded third-class compartment, and joined in a noisy game of nap with half a dozen roistering young clerks, who were full of jokes about his crumpled dinner clothes.  Arrived in London, he had the utmost difficulty to refrain from buying a red and yellow tie displayed in the station lavatory where he washed and shaved, and the necessity for purchasing a collar stud left him for a few moments in imminent peril of acquiring a large brass-stemmed production with a sham diamond head.  He hastened to his rooms, scarcely daring to look about him, turned over the clothes in his wardrobe with a curious dissatisfaction, and dressed himself hastily in as offensive a combination of garments as he could lay his hands upon.  He bought some common Virginian cigarettes and made his way to the offices of Messrs. Waddington and Forbes.

Mr. Waddington was unfeignedly glad to see him.  His office was pervaded by a sort of studious calm which, from a business point of view, seemed scarcely satisfactory.  Mr. Waddington himself appeared to be immersed in a calf-bound volume of Ruskin.  He glanced curiously at his late employee.

“Did you dress in a hurry, Burton?” he inquired.  “That combination of gray trousers and brown coat with a blue tie seems scarcely in your usual form.”

Burton dragged up a chair to the side of his late employer’s desk.

“Mr. Waddington,” he begged, “don’t let me go out of your sight until I have taken another bean.  It came on early this morning.  I went through all my wardrobe to find the wrong sort of clothes, and the only thing that seemed to satisfy me was to wear odd ones.  Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of me.  In a few hours’ time I shouldn’t want to take a bean at all.  I should be inviting you to lunch at the Golden Lion, playing billiards in the afternoon, and having a night out at a music hall.”

Mr. Waddington nodded sympathetically.

“Poor fellow!” he said.  “Seems odd that you should turn up this morning.  I can sympathize with you.  Have you noticed my tie?”

Burton nodded approvingly.

“Very pretty indeed,” he declared.

“You won’t think so when you’ve had that bean,” Mr. Waddington groaned.  “It began to come on with me about an hour ago.  I forced myself into these clothes but the tie floored me.  I’ve a volume of Ruskin here before me, but underneath, you see,” he continued, lifting up the blotting-paper, “is a copy of Snapshots.  I’m fighting it off as long as I can.  The fact is I’ve a sale this afternoon.  I thought if I could last until after that it might not be a bad thing.”

“How’s the biz?” Burton asked with a touch of his old jauntiness.  “Going strong, eh?”