When we reached London Keller disappeared in the direction of the
Strand. What his experiences may have been I cannot tell, but it
seems that he invaded the office of an evening paper at 11.45 a.m. (I
told him English editors were most idle at that hour), and mentioned
my name as that of a witness to the truth of his story.

'I was nearly fired out,' he said furiously at lunch. 'As soon as I
mentioned you, the old man said that I was to tell you that they
didn't want any more of your practical jokes, and that you knew the
hours to call if you had anything to sell, and that they'd see you
condemned before they helped to puff one of your infernal yarns in
advance. Say, what record do you hold for truth in this country,
anyway?'

'A beauty. You ran up against it, that's all. Why don't you leave the
English papers alone and cable to New York? Everything goes over
there.'

'Can't you see that's just why?' he repeated.

'I saw it a long time ago. You don't intend to cable then?'

'Yes, I do,' he answered, in the over-emphatic voice of one who does
not know his own mind.

That afternoon I walked him abroad and about, over the streets that
run between the pavements like channels of grooved and tongued lava,
over the bridges that are made of enduring stone, through subways
floored and sided with yard-thick concrete, between houses that are