W. Pett Ridge

“ Nainby reluctantly. "But don't you go thinking any more of what I said about that seven-thirty on Wednesday night from Waterloo, and a kit-bag with a military name on it. Put all that out of your mind, for goodness' sake! I should never forgive meself if I thought that I'd been the means of starting a likely young chap on the broad path that leadeth to destruction. And you, being new to the game, would only go making a mull of it. As for this key, in order to show you how easily I can avoid temptation at my time of life, why—here it goes!" ”

“ Nainby went into a corner public-house in Maple Road, which commanded a view of the house. There he had a long and amiable talk with the landlord on the subject of rheumatism and its various ineffective remedies, bewailing to a sympathetic ear the drawbacks that it brought to a man of active habits.
"You begin to get pains in your joints," he said dogmatically, "and you can't get in and out of winders like what you used to." ”

“ Speak as man to man—if you are able. Who's give me away?"
"It's a funny thing, hut I was never so much misunderstood," protested the landlord, "in all me blessèd life. I don't know you any more than I know that chap over there that's going in at the gate with a kit-bag."
Mr. Nainby whirled round with a word of contempt for his own thoughtlessness, and another word of reproof to his knees. By this foolish row he had as nearly as possible missed the entrance; another second, and the Hanbury Street young man would have gone into the house between the protecting trees, unobserved by him. ”