Page:The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.djvu/216

 off his boots, he crept softly upstairs, and suddenly striking a match, saw Mr. Parsons, the first floor lodger, in the very act of getting into the bottom of a soldier, who had his breeches down and at once bolted out of the door without waiting to put himself in decent order. The lodger slunk upstairs, and took his leave next day.

Just as this is going, to press there is a case in the London Daily Telegraph of July 9, 1881, in which a corporal of the Scots Guards is caught in the act of committing an unnatural offence at a coffee house in Lower Sloane Street. He gets committed for trial, whilst his companion, who has the luck to be Secretary to the German Embassy in London, is claimed to be dealt with by the German Government, and sent home to Vater- Vater-