The scene as I flung my old friend out at the window had burned itself into my brain, and I could go to the spot to-day as readily as I went on that occasion.

There it was, lying among the grass, but not quite in the place where it had fallen.

Apparently some navvy had found it, looked at it, and then dropped it.

It was half-full of water, and here and there it was sticking together; but I took it up tenderly, and several times on the way back to the station I felt in my pocket to make sure that it was really there.
[Illustration] I have not described the appearance of my pouch, feeling that to be unnecessary.

It never, I fear, quite recovered from its night in the rain, and as my female relatives refused to touch it, I had to sew it together now and then myself.