“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 whistle 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 you 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?”
“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 authority 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, he 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 with 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.