box, a dirty handkerchief flying out of the tail of his long, black coat, and a green, bulging umbrella, pointing outwards, under his arm, to the infinite danger of all the passers-by.

He was so commonplace a figure to Jeremy that, on ordinary days, he was shrouded by an invisibility of tradition.

But, to-day, he was fresh and strange.
"He'll be here to-morrow poking his nose into that box just the same, and I shall be--" Then, on the outskirts of the Market Place, Jeremy paused and looked about him.

There was all the usual business of the place--the wooden trestles with the flowerpots, the apple-woman under her umbrella, the empty cattle-pens, where the cows and sheep stood on market days, and behind them the dark, vaulted arches of the actual market, now empty and deserted.

Bathed in sunlight it lay very quiet and still; some pigeons pecking at grain, a dog or two, and children playing round the empty cattle-stalls.