It was only five o'clock, but winter
and the fog had made it like midnight.
"This is really an extraordinary walk for the patent-leather
boots," I repeated.
"I don't know," said Basil humbly. "It leads to Berkeley Square."
As I tramped on I strained my eyes through the dusky atmosphere
and tried to make out the direction described. For some ten
minutes I wondered and doubted; at the end of that I saw that
my friend was right. We were coming to the great dreary spaces
of fashionable London--more dreary, one must admit, even than
the dreary plebeian spaces.
"This is very extraordinary!" said Basil Grant, as we turned into
Berkeley Square.
"What is extraordinary?" I asked. "I thought you said it was quite
natural."
"I do not wonder," answered Basil, "at his walking through nasty
streets; I do not wonder at his going to Berkeley Square. But I do
wonder at his going to the house of a very good man."
"What very good man?" I asked with exasperation.
"The operation of time is a singular one," he said with his
imperturbable irrelevancy. "It is not a true statement of the case
to say that I have forgotten my career when I was a judge and a
public man. I remember it all vividly, but it is like remembering
some novel. But fifteen years ago I knew this square as well as
Lord Rosebery does, and a confounded long sight better than that
man who is going up the steps of old Beaumont's house.
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