An hour later he was at Old Square, waiting for the tram to Aston.

Huge steam-driven vehicles came and went, whirling about the open space with monitory bell-clang.

Amid a press of homeward-going workfolk, Hilliard clambered to a place on the top and lit his pipe.

He did not look the same man who had waited gloomily at Dudley Port; his eyes gleamed with life; answering a remark addressed to him by a neighbour on the car, he spoke jovially.
No rain was falling, but the streets shone wet and muddy under lurid lamp-lights.

Just above the house-tops appeared the full moon, a reddish disk, blurred athwart floating vapour.