"I am only a stranger from South Africa lodging at an hotel.

If you will give me time to call for my bag, I will pass the night at your house with pleasure." By the aid of Mr.Somers' smart dog-cart, which was waiting at a city mews, we reached Twickenham while there was still half an hour of daylight.

The house, which was called Verbena Lodge, was small, a square, red-brick building of the early Georgian period, but the gardens covered quite an acre of ground and were very beautiful, or must have been so in summer.

Into the greenhouse we did not enter, because it was too late to see the flowers.

Also, just when we came to them, Woodden arrived in his four-wheeled cab and departed with his master to see to the housing of "O.