When two friends happen to meet in the street, do they ever look back along the procession of small circumstances which has led them both, from the starting-point of their own houses, to the same spot, at the same time?
Not one man in ten thousand has probably ever thought of making such a fantastic inquiry as this.

And consequently not one man in ten thousand, living in the midst of reality, has discovered that he is also living in the midst of romance.
From the moment when the young surgeon closed the door of his house, he was walking blindfold on his way to a patient in the future who was personally still a stranger to him.

He never reached the College of Surgeons.

He never embarked on his friend's yacht.
What were the obstacles which turned him aside from the course that he had in view?
Nothing but a series of trivial circumstances, occurring in the experience of a man who goes out for a walk.
He had only reached the next street, when the first of the circumstances presented itself in the shape of a friend's carriage, which drew up at his side.

A bright benevolent face encircled by bushy white whiskers, looked out of the window, and a hearty voice asked him if he had completed his arrangements for a long holiday.