“Train rather late, surely,” remarked Mr. Chelsfield deferentially to the Inspector.

“What do you expect?” demanded the official, turning upon him suddenly.  “What do you look for at a time like this?”

“My son!” replied the other, with pride.  “Me and his mother have give him six months at a boarding-school in Kent, and he’s coming home this afternoon.”

“I don’t mean what you mean.”  The Inspector became more calm as he essayed the task known to railway men as knocking sense into the heads of the public.  “What I intended to say was that at this time of the year, and with all these specials about, it’s only reasonable to assume that the ordinary trains—  See what I’m driving at, don’t you?  Steam’s a wonderful invention, but we can’t do impossibilities.  Think of the old coaching-days; what must it have been like then?”

p. 134“His mother’s waiting at home, else I shouldn’t be so eager.”

“Ah!” said the Inspector, with a touch of either sentiment or condescension.  “We all know what women are.”

Mr. Chelsfield, walking along the platform with the Inspector for the sake of company and the encouragement of warmth, had to admit that he felt equally anxious, and offered the present of a cigar which he described as harmless; the official accepted it graciously, and promised to make it the subject of an experiment on the following Sunday afternoon.  In return he gave the latest news from Chislehurst, and guaranteed to eat his silk hat if the Emperor recovered.  He felt sorry for Napoleon, and expressed the view that it was a pity there was only one son in the family.  Nice enough young fellow, it was true; he had shaken hands with the Inspector once, but if anything happened to the Prince Imperial, where would they be?  The Inspector’s estimate of the right number in a family coincided with the number in his own.

“This,” said Mr. Chelsfield, with a nod in the direction of the down line—“this is the only one we’ve got.  Only one we ever had.”

“Take care not to spoil him.  That’s always the risk when there’s only one.  Now my six—  Here’s the train signalled.  Get p. 135to the other end of the platform, and then you can’t miss him.”

The platform was long under its wooden roof, and Mr. Chelsfield could not move with the celerity he had shown in the early ’sixties; some of his colleagues at the warehouse said it was rheumatism, but he declared it to be only a slight stiffness of the joints.  Passengers were going through the barrier, and, flushed by anxiety, he looked about; presently made a dash through the crowd, seized a lad who wore a mortar-board, and pinched his ear affectionately.  On the lad turning and demanding an explanation, Mr. Chelsfield apologised for his error, and hurried off to continue his search.

“Three hours and a half,” said the friendly Inspector later.  “That’s what it is before the next.  It isn’t worth while waiting if you only live up in Holborn.  Hop into a ’bus outside the station.”

“I must,” Mr. Chelsfield admitted concernedly.  “I’m bound to go back and tell his mother.  She’ll be out of her mind else.”

“Just my argument,” claimed the Inspector.  “Now, if you’d got six, like I have—”

Mr. Chelsfield stepped out of the omnibus at Chancery Lane, and, paying the conductor, went along to Bedford Row with some wisps of the straw belonging to the conveyance attached to his boots.  He felt p. 136himself to be on the edge of a painful scene, and wondered where he should find the sal volatile if it happened to be wanted.  The front door of the offices, with its elaborate knocker, was open, and he went slowly downstairs to the living-rooms.

“Well?” said his wife.  He shook his head.  “Speak up!” she commanded; “I can’t hear when you turn your face to the wall and mumble like that.”

He gave the explanation and waited for signs of collapse.

“You’re a pretty one to send to a railway-station, and no mistake!” she remarked, taking off the tea-cosy.  “Another time I must go myself.”

“None for me, mother,” he said desolately.  “I couldn’t drink it even if you poured it out.  Wonder what’s happened to the boy?”

“How should I know?”

He walked up and down the room, looked through the window at the iron grating, and rubbed his head furiously with a red pocket-handkerchief, the wife watching him with an amused expression.  As she took the knife in order to cut the home-made cake, still warm from the oven, he raised his hand as a feeble protest against asking him to taste food.

“Can we have the winder open?” he asked submissively.  “This room seems stuffy to p. 137me, or else it is that I’m upset.  I feel—I feel as though I can’t sit down at this table.”

“Suppose,” said his wife, with a wink—“suppose you have a look underneath it.”

The boy crawled out, smoothed his hair, and submitted a forehead to his parent; the mother came near to choking with delight at the success of her elaborate scheme, and presently leaned head exhaustedly against the antimacassar which protected the back of the horsehair easy-chair.  How on earth had they missed each other?—that was what the delighted father wanted to know.  Henry must have jumped out of the train and cut away uncommonly sharp.  Henry, permitted under the special circumstances to discard convention and begin with cake, working back through the toast to the bread and butter, confessed that he had lost no time.

“But, my lad,” urged his father more seriously, “you knowed that I was coming to meet you.”

“Had another fellow with me,” replied the boy.

“Oh!”—arresting a doubled piece of bread and butter on its way from the plate—“and didn’t you want him to see me?”

“Don’t be silly, father!” interposed the mother.  “Henry, my child, ask if you want a second piece.”

“It wasn’t exactly that,” said the boy.

“Then, perhaps, you’ll kindly tell me what p. 138was the reason.  Come on, now; out with it!  I want an answer.”

“Thought perhaps you might kiss me, father.  And Watherston standing by.”

“Very natural on the boy’s part,” declared the mother.  “You forget that Henry’s growing up.  He doesn’t mind it in private, but there comes a time when a boy doesn’t want all this fuss in public.”

“If that was the only reason—” said the father.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full!” ordered his wife.  “You never see Henry do it.  And one arm off the table, if you please.”  Her husband obeyed, taking up an attitude of greater precision and obvious discomfort.  “That sounds like Gleeson & Co. going out; I shall have to see about my pail and flannel, and get up there and do their floor.”

“I thought—” began the boy sharply.

“We decided otherwise, my dear,” she said.  “We didn’t settle it in a hurry by any means; your father and me talked it over night after night, and eventually we came to a definite conclusion.”

“You see, my lad”—the father took up the explanation—“there was money going out for your schooling, and provisions don’t get no cheaper, and we was both anxious not to touch the little nest-egg we’ve put by.  Besides”—with spirit, on noting the crimson look of annoyance on his son’s face—“besides, it’s p. 139purely a matter for us to settle.  If your mother doesn’t mind going on with the housekeeper work, and if I don’t object to her doing it, why, there’s nothing more to be said.”

The tea-table endured a silence of nearly a minute.  The two parents examined the pattern of the oilcloth that covered it.

“Pardon me,” said the boy, with the new manner acquired at the boarding-school, “but am I to understand that my feelings are not to be considered in the matter?”

The mother put out her hand quickly and patted her husband’s arm, upraised to give a gesture that would emphasise his reply.  He dropped it, and took a long, loud drink from a saucer that trembled.

“We can talk about this,” she said hurriedly, “another time.  We shall have a clear fortnight, Henry, before you start work.  Say grace!”  They bowed their heads, and joined in the Amen.  “Did you make some nice new friends at the boarding-school, my dear?  We’ve arranged all about your party for the fifteenth, and I think, by a little scrounging and a hand-round supper, we ought to be able to manage twelve.  Including us three, that is.  If we go over that, there’s always the risk of having the unlucky number, and that spoils everybody’s pleasure.  Come along with me, and we can have a good talk over the arrangements whilst I’m tying on my apern.  What p. 140I was wondering was whether we should have all boys, old friends of yours about the neighbourhood, or whether to invite a few girls.  There’s your friend Jessie,” she bustled on waggishly.  “We mustn’t let her feel neglected.  Always asks after you, Jessie does.”  She lowered her voice.  “Your father’s got the idea into his head that the boarding-school may have induced you to be high and mighty, and make you look down on them and us.  But of course, my dear, I know better.”

The boy was leaning against the stout oak door later, as his mother cleaned and hearthstoned the steps; two minutes, she remarked, and her work would be over.  In reply to his urgent appeal, she gave a promise that so soon as he began to earn money the work should be finished for good.  A lad in a mortar-board came ............