The light came and went by turns, as the clouds passed by,
and, turning round as the clear, white rays shone into the passage,
Salisbury saw the little ball of crumpled paper which the woman had cast
down. Oddly curious to know what it might contain, he picked it up and
put it in his pocket, and set out afresh on his journey. III

Salisbury was a man of habit. When he got home, drenched to the skin,
his clothes hanging lank about him, and a ghastly dew besmearing his
hat, his only thought was of his health, of which he took studious care. So, after changing his clothes and encasing himself in a warm
dressing-gown, he proceeded to prepare a sudorific in the shape of a hot
gin and water, warming the latter over one of those spirit-lamps which
mitigate the austerities of the modern hermit's life. By the time this
preparation had been exhibited, and Salisbury's disturbed feelings had
been soothed by a pipe of tobacco, he was able to get into bed in a
happy state of vacancy, without a thought of his adventure in the dark
archway, or of the weird fancies with which Dyson had seasoned his
dinner. It was the same at breakfast the next morning, for Salisbury
made a point of not thinking of any thing until that meal was over; but
when the cup and saucer were cleared away, and the morning pipe was lit,
he remembered the little ball of paper, and began fumbling in the
pockets of his wet coat. He did not remember into which pocket he had
put it, and as he dived now into one and now into another, he
experienced a strange feeling of apprehension lest it should not be
there at all, though he could not for the life of him have explained the
importance he attached to what was in all probability mere rubbish. But
he sighed with relief when his fingers touched the crumpled surface in
an inside pocket, and he drew it out gently and laid it on the little
desk by his easy-chair with as much care as if it had been some rare
jewel. Salisbury sat smoking and staring at his find for a few minutes,
an odd temptation to throw the thing in the fire and have done with it
struggling with as odd a speculation as to its possible contents, and as
to the reason why the infuriated woman should have flung a bit of paper
from her with such vehemence. As might be expected, it was the latter
feeling that conquered in the end, and yet it was with something like
repugnance that he at last took the paper and unrolled it, and laid it
out before him. It was a piece of common dirty paper, to all appearance
torn out of a cheap exercise-book, and in the middle were a few lines
written in a queer cramped hand. Salisbury bent his head and stared
eagerly at it for a moment, drawing a long breath, and then fell back in
his chair gazing blankly before him, till at last with a sudden
revulsion he burst into a peal of laughter, so long and loud and
uproarious that the landlady's baby on the floor below awoke from sleep
and echoed his mirth with hideous yells. But he laughed again and again,
and took the paper up to read a second time what seemed such meaningless
nonsense. 'Q. has had to go and see his friends in Paris,' it began. 'Traverse
    Handle S. "Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and
    thrice around the maple tree."' Salisbury took up the paper and crumpled it as the angry woman had done,
and aimed it at the fire. He did not throw it there, however, but
tossed it carelessly into the well of the desk, and laughed again. The
sheer folly of the thing offended him, and he was ashamed of his own
eager speculation, as one who pores over the high-sounding announcements
in the agony column of the daily paper, and finds nothing but
advertisement and triviality. He walked to the window, and stared out at
the languid morning life of his quarter; the maids in slatternly print
dresses washing door-steps, the fish-monger and the butcher on their
rounds, and the tradesmen standing at the doors of their small shops,
drooping for lack of trade and excitement. In the distance a blue haze
gave some grandeur to the prospect, but the view as a whole was
depressing, and would only have interested a student of the life of
London, who finds something rare and choice in its very aspect. Salisbury turned away in disgust, and settled himself in the easy-chair,
upholstered in a bright shade of green, and decked with yellow gimp,
which was the pride and attraction of the apartments. Here he composed
himself to his morning's occupation--the perusal of a novel that dealt
with sport and love in a manner that suggested the collaboration of a
stud-groom and a ladies' college. In an ordinary way, however, Salisbury
would have been carried on by the interest of the story up to
lunch-time, but this morning he fidgeted in and out of his chair, took
the book up and laid it down again, and swore at last to himself and at
himself in mere irritation. In point of fact the jingle of the paper
found in the archway had 'got into his head,' and do what he would he
could not help muttering over and over, 'Once around the grass, and
twice around the lass, and thrice around the maple tree.' It became a
positive pain, like the foolish burden of a music-hall song,
everlastingly quoted, and sung at all hours of the day and night, and
treasured by the street-boys as an unfailing resource for six months
together. He went out into the streets, and tried to forget his enemy in
the jostling of the crowds and the roar and clatter of the traffic, but
presently he would find himself stealing quietly aside, and pacing some
deserted byway, vainly puzzling his brains, and trying to fix some
meaning to phrases that were meaningless. It was a positive relief when
Thursday came, and he remembered that he had made an appointment to go
and see Dyson; the flimsy reveries of the self-styled man of letters
appeared entertaining when compared with this ceaseless iteration, this
maze of thought from which there seemed no possibility of escape. Dyson's abode was in one of the quietest of the quiet streets that led
down from the Strand to the river, and when Salisbury passed from the
narrow stairway into his friend's room, he saw that the uncle had been
beneficent indeed. The floor glowed and flamed with all the colours of
the East; it was, as Dyson pompously remarked, 'a sunset in a dream,'
and the lamplight, the twilight of London streets, was shut out with
strangely worked curtains, glittering here and there with threads of
gold. In the shelves of an oak _armoire_ stood jars and plates of old
French china, and the black and white of etchings not to be found in the
Haymarket or in Bond Street, stood out against the splendour of a
Japanese paper. Salisbury sat down on the settle by the hearth, and
sniffed the mingled fumes of incense and tobacco, wondering and dumb
before all this splendour after the green rep and the oleographs, the
gilt-framed mirror, and the lustres of his own apartment. 'I am glad you have come,' said Dyson. 'Comfortable little room, isn't
it?