At Start and Finish

The story opens on a warm July afternoon in 1899, when a man who has spent three decades abroad steps back onto the bustling streets of London. From the lofty steps of Morley’s, he watches hansoms and horse‑drawn coaches glide past, the scent of the city filling his senses and stirring a quiet pride. Suddenly a tall, sun‑bronzed stranger appears, clasping his hand with a familiarity that feels both sudden and long‑awaited, and the two old friends—once comrades under Oxford’s shadows—find themselves reunited on the very pavement that first knew them.

Their conversation drifts from light recollections to deeper questions of belonging. The narrator explains how he crossed the Atlantic, became a professional runner, and eventually took United States citizenship, while his companion, Colonel Patterson, recounts years in India and his own sense of displacement. Their exchange foregrounds themes of memory, loyalty, and the uneasy balance between the life left behind and the one forged abroad, setting the tone for the reflective journey that follows.