Over the following years Tom and Polly continue a friendship largely through correspondence, with occasional visits. Tom sends her books and letters with stories in them, many of which tie into the general theme of his predicament. Together, the two come up with stories about a hero named Tan Coul and his assistant Hero, who are Mr. Lynn's and Polly's alter egos, respectively. These stories all eventually come true, after a fashion. For instance, after discussing Tan Coul's horse, they encounter an identical horse disrupting traffic in the streets of London, having escaped from a nearby circus. An invented town and hardware store later turn out to be real, the proprietor being the spitting image of Tom, and "his" nephew Leslie falling into the story much later as a possible victim of Laurel's. Tom and Polly's story features three other heroes; later on, Tom gives Polly a photograph of all the members of his orchestra, and asks her to identify them. She immediately finds the other three heroes. These three are exactly the ones with whom Tom was considering setting up an independent string quartet.