That's not the Jack Smith I mean!" "What!" roared my companion, "you don't mean him ?" "No, who ?" cried I, utterly bewildered.
"Why, old Jack Smith, the sexton, what was eighty-two last Christmas! You wasn't at school with him! Oh, I say; here, take the reins: I can't drive straight no longer!" and he fairly collapsed into the bottom of the cart.
This little diversion, amusing as it was, did not have the effect of allaying my anxiety to hear something about my old schoolfellow.
My driver, however, although he knew plenty of Smiths in the town, knew no one answering to Jack's description; and, now that Packworth was in sight, I began to feel rather foolish to have come so far on such a wild-goose chase.
Packworth is a large town with about 40,000 inhabitants; and when, having bidden farewell to the good-natured baker, I found myself in its crowded bustling streets, any chance of running against my old chum seemed very remote indeed.
I went to the post-office where my two letters had been addressed, the one I wrote a year ago, just after Jack's expulsion, and the other written last week from Brownstroke.
"Have you any letters addressed to `J' ?" I asked.
The clerk fumbled over the contents of a pigeon-hole, from which he presently drew out my last letter and gave it to me.
"Wait a bit," said he, as I was taking it up, and turning to leave the office.

"Wait a bit." He went back to the pigeon-hole, and after another sorting produced, very dusty and dirty, my first letter.

"That's for `J' too," said he.
Then Jack had never been to Packworth, or got my letter, posted at such risk.

He must have given me a false address.

Surely, if he lived here, he would have called for the letter.