Page:Bill the minder.djvu/273

THE LOST GROCER

solicitor, the vicar, the corn-chandler, and myself (some of us already stricken in years) were seated, as was now our evening custom, upon the rustic bridge that carries the road across the river Peg. The fragrant smoke of our long pipes rising to the evening sky, our conversation, as was now so frequently the case, had drifted from politics, sport, fashions and the latest police intelligence to lovingly-recalled memories of our long-lost friend, and so sad did we become that lumps as large as egg plums rose to our throats, and our eyes brimmed over with tears.

'Drying our eyes we now smoked on in silent contemplation of the past; the night gradually drew down, and the first star appeared in the cloudless sky when there came to us the sound of a distant footstep, coming along the road towards the town, and presently a strange figure hove in sight,—an old, old man, with 205