And then a week or two later, I likewise take my departure, but fortunately only on a brief visit to friends in the north of London. I am seen off at the station. My mother returns to the empty house and writes, “Dear Luther went off delighted. Gracious Father, guard and protect my little lamb until he returns.”

Writing the word “Luther” reminds me of an odd incident. I was called Luther as a boy, not because it was my name, but to distinguish me from my father, whose Christian name was also Jerome. A year or two ago, on Paddington platform, a lady stopped me and asked me if I were Luther Jerome. I had not heard the name for nearly half a century; and suddenly, as if I had been riding Mr. Wells' Time Machine backwards, Paddington station vanished with a roar (it may have been the pilot-engine, bringing in the 6.15) and all the dead were living.

It turned out we had been playmates together in the old days at Poplar. We had not seen each other since we were children. She admitted, looking closer at me, that there had come changes. But there was still “something about the eyes,” she explained. It was certainly curious.

For some reason, about this time, there seems to have crept into my mother's heart the hope that we might get back possession of the farm in Devonshire to which my father had brought her home after their honeymoon, and that she might end her days there. It lies on the north side of the river above Bideford, and is marked by a ruined tower, near to which, years ago, relics were discovered proving beyond all doubt that the Founder of our House was one “Clapa,” a Dane, who had obtained property in the neighbourhood about the year Anno Domini one thousand. It was Clapa, I take it, who suggested our family crest, upraised arm grasping a battle-axe, with round about it the legend “Deo omnia data.” But as to how much Clapa owed to God and how much to his battle-axe, found rusted beside his bones, history is silent.