The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-20
TALES OF TEN TRAVELLERS.
Within umhian Metss and Bounds.
BY EDGAR L. wAKEAEs.

coincidences had already entertained our Ten Travellers for perhaps an hour of the cheery evening time. Some of us had noticed that a grave yet light some smile of reminiscence had fallen upon the face of the Clerical Traveller. We knew his moods, and little by little our discursive chatter was stilled, and we had not long to walt for this pleas ant memory out of his youthtide days.
 think I never saw in print and I certainly never heard discussed. the peculiar feeling which Is experienced in seeing or hearing spoken ones own name. when it is possessed by another person, or the still more inexplicable emotions of interest and affinity which flash into ones mind and heart, de- spite all mental protest, when one Is confronted by another human being, of whose existence there has been no pre- vious knowledge, and whose right to your own name can no more be dispu- ted than yours to his.
 once had such an experience, and a series of almost romantic incidents grew out of 1t.
 While an undergraduate at Oxford I often ran down to London, usually with no better defined purpose than of shaking off the gloomy and austere en- vironment of scholastic life.
 My home while in the city was at a certain historic tavern, in the bustling neighborhood of Covent Garden; and, having in those days liking for stud ies of lowly London life, soon formed more than an ordinary attachment for the stalwart night porter of the an- cient inn where lodged.
 Aside from his splendid physical pro- portions and complete and unconscious dauntlessness, two qualities rendering his services particularly valuable where thousands of costermongers, cartmen, marketmen, farmers, greengrocers' lads and brawny market porters were all night long and away into the morn- ing, continually breaking out into hurly-burly horse play, which often de- veloped serious annoyance to coming and going guests, his frank ingenious ness and hearty ways had completely won my affection.
 At all hours of the night would lin ger near him in the tavern entrance, listening to his tales of London life, naively and engagingly told in his broad northern accent, noting his frank yet canny treatment of late ar rivals at the inn, or watching with the of the wild market mobs which now and then surged viciously in upon the area railings and the entrance where he sat or stood.
 One night two huge market porters, evidently with bad blood between them, while passing with their burdens from the market stalls to the greengrocers' wagons, which are always closely damned in separate lines from Covent Garden through the by-streets, away around into the Strand, almost to Wa terloo bridge to the east and to Trafal- gar Square to the west, met on the crowded walk immediately before us
 In an instant there were fierce blows and a cheering mob hemming the com- batants in. The two clinched desper- ately, and in their struggles finally and fell squarely against us. Then saw the most extraordinary exhibition of physical power had ever witnessed.
 My porter friend parted the mad dened men as though they had been blades of grass; lifted one over my head and set him safely behind the oaken tavern door, and then, apparent ly without effort, lifted the other en- tirely over the nearest line of carts and dropped him gently on the other side; thus as effectually separating the brawlers as though the Thames were flowing between them. For moment the market mob was silent Then 8 hearty cheer of approval followed, and trailing out of this heard 8 gigantic and rufianly coster hoarsely exclaim:
 Strike me lucky! Bob Dorlzlin, yer ekal aren't t be found in W'itechapel, nor yet in Shor' 'ditch-Gor bli me, so Zee aren't!
 Then for the first time knew that my porter friend, whom I had always accosted as "Bob," and who had never addressed me other than as "Sir," bore my own name.
 Singularly, too, for moment there was a sense of family pride in his quiet and splendid performance If honest ly confessed my feelings at the time, would even have to admit that the spontaneous admiration of the market men, carried on through this quick re- cognition of possible affinity and the surprising coincidence of names, to momentary self-appropriation on my part of the rough throngs plaudits.
 Yet, weakly and unfairly, I gave and graduation, in the disclosure of my own Christian and surname, and sell fishly enjoyed the strange feeling to which have already referred.
 He knew no more of me than that was young gentleman studying at Oxford and destined for the church. knew him then only as have related; but I gradually learned he was from the north, and had been drawn to the great city as hundreds of thousands of