"Then I'll go to sleep at four o'clock. Not a moment before. I simply couldn't. Oh, to think that in four hours all the suspense and horrors of the last months will be at an end! When shall we reach home? Think of it, Jack! Home!"
"Depends on our getting a boat. We'll go right through to Rotterdam and shall reach there by nine or ten to-morrow morning, say before midday anyhow; but we may have to wait for a boat."
"I shan't mind that. We must wire to mother as soon as we're over the frontier. Not likely to have any bother there, are we?"
"Can't think of any. We've got all the necessary papers."
"How perfectly glorious! And to think that I owe it all to you."
"That rather takes the cream off, doesn't it?"
"Don't fish. I might say something to make you blush. I'm quite capable of it and not a bit responsible for what I say. I want to revel in the thought of it all."
"State business, is it? What do I care about State business? I want a seat and I'm going to have one," broke in a harsh ill-tempered voice from the corridor.
"Going to have travelling companions to Osnabrück," I said. "Some of those officers who got in at Hanover. Better let them come in."
There was no question of letting them. The man whose voice we had heard came in. "We've got to sit here; there's not another seat in the train," he said bluntly.