'Ross!'
'Can I never say it?'
'No,' I said severely, 'never.'
'But if I go and stay at Hindhead, surely there I——'
'Yes, but there you must say "punchbowl" after it.'
'Seems a bit complicated, Meg; how pious you've grown! What are you standing still for, Brown? Get the luggage and get a lick on you,' said my amiable relative, 'and then go back to London, don't——'
Brown had however vanished on to the platform and I followed.
'Sam,' I remarked, and somehow all the years slipped back, and he was just the jolly boy at Uncle Jasper's lodge, and I the Rector's little daughter. 'You can't go back to-night; there's no train; the last one goes at seven o'clock.'
'So the matron said, miss'—(what a wily bird, she said she'd 'work it')—'but, don't you worry, miss, I'll come up presently, it'll be all right, there ain't no call for you to worry, miss'—(there never was in Sam's view)—'we've got through worse than this,' said Sam as we got back to the cab.
'Got all the things?' asked Ross.