The Argosy, March 1907 — page 190: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

FFX. Be? a oS. a ‘ ve ™S, 4 ey ey ~ ‘ 15 i rs » ne M > wy rb she , bar Vie ~ ‘ - er ! hoped and believed, would share, but there seemed to be no other course. Accordingly, he helped attend to the cattle, messed with the men, and slept in a forecastle bunk until, two weeks after his departure, the Vancouver brought up in the Thames at Deptford. Then the captain proved his good heart by changing Fuller’s seventy-five cents into three English shillings, and giving him a. gold sovereign in addition. ‘“T’ve no business to do this,” he ex- . plained, ‘for I can’t properly charge it to the pay-roll, but your case is excep- tional. It isn’t as if you’d stowed your- self away on purpose.”’ | “Tl send you the amount as soon as T.get home,” said Fuller. ‘Just as you like; but you want to get home now as fast as you can, and as there may be some delay, you want to be careful in spending this money.” He then advised Fuller how to find the American consul, and they parted the best of friends. In fact, the men gen- erally had been so kind that Fuller felt a great lonesomeness as soon as he found himself in the thick of busy London, but . it was such a blessed thing to be on land again that he set out with a high heart to find the consul and tell his story. Of course he got lost. Of course he went miles out of his way, but he per- sisted in his queries, and at last, in the evening, he came to St. Helen’s Place off Bishopsgate Street where the wander- ing Yankee is ever gladdened to see the . Stars and Stripes floating from the last building on the rfght-hand side. Business was over for the day, and Fuller had to seek a lodging-place. A whole book could be written about his adventures in London, though none of them were sensational, and none the re- sult of anything but unfamiliarity, and a great deal of pathos might be wrought up over the attitude of the consul when at length Fuller managed to get into: his august presence. The consul heard his story and de- clined to believe it. Fuller had no proof about him that he was an American citi- zen except his dialect, and although that was proof enough, the consul assured him that the gdvernment did not make a business of returning stranded Amer- icans to their homes. THE ARGOSY. “You say you bane a savings- bank ee account,” said the consul. ‘Very well; == send for some money, or notify your friends. In the course of ten days or so you can get a remittance by cable.” That was it in very brief, and Fuller ~~ left St. Helen’s. Place with the prospect = of looking for odd jobs to keep himself = alive until his money should come. He was so dazed that he did not think*of ~~ asking permission to write his letters in = the consular office, and there was no Bue place for writing in the house where he~ — had spent the night. It was not a good = place, anyway,.and he decided to hunt — for another and to write his letter wae aS ie ‘he found it. Ls Accordingly, he - walked thie - streets eS: aimlessly, for he had not the slightest = idea of London, but some good fate led his steps past the Bank, past St. Paul’s, down Ludgate Hill, and so through (ae Fleet Street to the Strand. se It was really not a long walk, but the ee strangeness of it all and the unending = = bustle confused and-wearied him. Mean- time, though he had seen more than one — hotel, there had been none into which he cared to venture with his slender — capital, and he had seen nothing what- ~— ever analogous to his boarding-house in Cranville. In fact, there was only one thing = == had seen more unlike Cranville than ~~ 22 London, and that was the Atlantic ~~ Ocean. <= It has been said that if one stands at Charing Cross long enough he will see every man in the world pass by. <A pic- =a turesque exaggeration, perhaps, but it = was at Charing Cross that Tom Fuller aioe came to the beginning of the end of his troubles. 3 ee He had paused there for a moment, gee seeing the end of his road a short dis- = tance away and wondering which of the ae many other roads he should take, when ; a familiar voice cried, ‘ Weil, - for ae Heaven’s sake!” ae He looked up, startled, and saw Fran- ae cis Manning. a For just an instant the rvala ees agi each other, and if it had been Cranville —— there can be no doubt that hostilities = would have been resumed forthwith; but 5 it was London—vast, lonesome, foreign London—and that gladness which pos- = comicbooks.com