After walking for ten minutes I said to him: "I want to speak to you seriously.

Do you happen to know where Erith is ?" "No, Frank." "It is a little landing place on the Thames," I went on, "not many miles away: it can be reached by a fast pair of horses and a brougham in a very short time.

There at Erith is a steam yacht ready to start at a moment's notice; she has steam up now, one hundred pounds pressure to the square inch in her boilers; her captain's waiting, her crew ready--a greyhound in leash; she can do fifteen knots an hour without being pressed.

In one hour she would be free of the Thames and on the high seas--( delightful phrase, eh ?)--high seas indeed where there is freedom uncontrolled.
"If one started now one could breakfast in France, at Boulogne, let us say, or Dieppe; one could lunch at St.Malo or St.Enogat or any place you like on the coast of Normandy, and one could dine comfortably at the Sables d'Olonne, where there is not an Englishman to be found, and where sunshine reigns even in May from morning till night.
"What do you say, Oscar, will you come and try a homely French bourgeois dinner to-morrow evening at an inn I know almost at the water's edge?
We could sit out on the little terrace and take our coffee in peace under the broad vine leaves while watching the silver pathway of the moon widen on the waters.

We could smile at the miseries of London and its wolfish courts shivering in cold grey mist hundreds of miles away.