“Come on in!” he cried sportively at the window of the compartment.  “Plenty of room.  Reserved for gentlemen.  The more the merrier!”

They pushed him aside in a way that showed the determined excursionist, and the youth placed his bag on the rack and arranged more neatly his rug and selection of cheap weekly journals.  The others, choosing seats, said he could now put his head out again, and in this way frighten off other passengers.  Twice, before the train started, he found himself afflicted by a short, sharp cough when girls went by in couples, and as they looked around he lifted his cap, glancing over his shoulder to see whether the humour was recognised and appreciated by fellow-travellers.

He asked numerous questions of the harried porters, shouted “Move yourself!” to folk who ran up at the last moment, gave a loud p. 68whistle to the guard and waved his arm.  The staff on the platform showed indications of relief as the train took him away; he begged them to cheer up, promising to be back in London in ten days’ time.

“When I go off for my holiday in the country,” he remarked, going back into his corner and placing one heel on the cushion opposite, “I always reckon to begin enjoying myself from the very start.  Lose no time, is my motto.  Anybody object to smoking?”

A middle-aged man answered that he did not exactly object, but he thought people who wanted to smoke might as well travel in a smoking-carriage.  Had no desire to make any unpleasantness, but that was his view.

“My dear old University chum,” cried the youth, striking a match, “I can see what’s the matter with you.  You’ve had a row with the missus.  She’s been giving you a bit of her mind this morning.  She’s been offering a few ’ome truths, and some of ’em still rankle.  Now what you’ve got to do is to imitate me.”

“Heaven forbid!”

“You’ve got to throw off dull care and be merry and bright.  Give us a yarn.”

“You give us,” retorted the middle-aged man, testily, “a little peace and quietness.”

“Then let’s have a riddle.”

“I’ll riddle you,” threatened the man, “if p. 69you can’t leave off badgering.  Talk to one of the others.  I’m tired of you.”

“He loves me, he loves me not.”  Counting the ends of the window strap and throwing them away when the last gave a negative reply.  “All my old friends seem to be deserting me since I come into a bit of money.  Does any one want to borrow a five-pound note?  Don’t all speak at once!”

The compartment seemed disinclined to talk; willing, indeed, to allow him to monopolise the conversation.  He increased his efforts, and presently an anecdote told concerning a lady of his acquaintance goaded one into making the statement that the joke had appeared in print over and over again.

“Very well,” said the young blade, “then let somebody else have a go.”  Somebody else did now accept the invitation, and ere the train was free of the last streets of town conversation became general, and he had to raise his voice in order to preserve for himself the lead.

“You can’t tell me nothing I don’t know about London,” he shouted.  “I’ve lived there for the last three years, and I reckon I’m more of a Londoner than any one who was born there.  Look ’ere; we can soon put it to the test.  How many comic songs of the present day have any of you got in your repertoire?  What about you, uncle?”

p. 70“My young friend,” protested the middle-aged man, “I have met, in my time, a good many bounders of all shapes and sorts and sizes, but you are the limit.  Why don’t you behave yourself quietly when you’re in the presence of your betters?”

“I always do,” he replied.  “Now then, if any one can give an imitation of George Robey, let him do it; if not, I’ll have a try to do the best I can.  It’ll shorten the journey for you.”

They admitted his effort was not so bad, and two or three of his own age began to regard him enviously.  Having regained command, he took care not to lose it again, and by the time the train stopped at its first junction he had secured an attentive audience; even the middle-aged man, on the train re-starting, asked how far he was going.  The lad, with a glance out of the window, said he was not yet near his destination, but promised to give full warning when the time came near for them to endure the wrench of saying good-bye.

He conquered the middle-aged man, but appeared not satisfied with his victory, and, exercising the power of a tyrant, gave him a nick-name and invented a description of the domestic environments, insisting, in spite of the man’s assertion that he was a bachelor, on offering a lively account of the masterful behaviour of the man’s wife, her p. 71authority over him, his servile and penitent behaviour.

“A confounded young cad!” declared the other, heatedly, “that’s what you are.  Most offensive specimen I ever encountered.  Perfect curse to society.”

“Isn’t he a daisy?” asked the youth of the others.  “Isn’t he a arum lily?  Isn’t he a china ornament?”

“Leave him alone!” urged one of the others.

“Right you are,” he said, amiably.  “I’ll give you a turn now.”

The compartment was becoming restive under his sniping, when some one caught the name of a station as the train flew past, and the lad, saying, “I didn’t know we were so near,” rose and took his bag from the rack.  Letting the window down and resting his chin there, he inhaled the country air, and announced, with a change of tone, identification of certain houses and meadows.  That was the place where he once knocked up thirty-eight, after making a duck’s-egg in the first innings; here was the very finest wood for nutting in the whole neighbourhood; over there, if you only went late enough and not too late, you could pick more blackberries than you cared to carry away.  He begged them all to rise to catch sight of the spire of a church; they had to jump up again to see the thatched roof of a farm where lived, p. 72he declared, three of the best cousins in the whole world.  He packed his cap in the bag, put on a bowler, and threw away the end of his cigarette.

“Hope I haven’t been talking too much,” he said, apologetically, “and I trust no offence has been taken where none was intended.  Just look at that clump of trees over there, and notice the colours they’ve got; aren’t they simply wonderful?  What were you going to say, sir?”

The middle-aged man hazarded the opinion that Nature knew something.

“Makes you realise,” admitted the youth soberly, “when you get down into the country, that some one else besides man has had to do with the making of the world.  If you gentlemen don’t mind coming over here, you’ll be able to catch a glimpse of where my mother and my sister live.  There!” he cried exultantly.  “You just saw it, didn’t you, between the trees.  Smoke coming out of the chimney.  That means—”  He pressed his hand against his under-lip.  “That means they’re preparing.  You’ve no idea what a lot they think of me.  If they’re at the station, you’ll have a chance of seeing them.  Goodbye all.  Hope you’ll enjoy yourselves as much as I’m going to.”

He stepped out before the train ceased to move, and looked up and down the platform p. 73with eagerness and some anxiety.  An elderly woman in black and a short girl waved excitedly to him from the inside of the doorway of the booking-office; he ran across, and, dropping the bag, kissed them affectionately.

“You dear, dear blessing!” cried the mother.