“And did the Prime Minister put up with that?” asked Davis.
“What could he do?” said the other, with a shrug of the shoulder.
“If I were Lord Jedburg, I'd have unkennelled him, I promise you that, Simmy. But here, it's nigh twelve o'clock, and I have a mass of things to do. I say, Hankes, could you contrive to look in here to-morrow evening, after nightfall? I may have something to tell you.”
“We were strictly confidential,—all on honor, this morning, Kit,” said the other, whispering.
“I think you know me, Mister Simmy,” was all Grog's reply. “I don't think my worst enemy could say that I ever 'split' on the fellow that trusted me.”
A hearty shake-hands followed, and they parted.
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TRAIN
The up-train from Holyhead was a few minutes behind time at Chester, and the travellers who awaited its arrival manifested that mixture of impatience and anxiety which in our railroad age is inseparable from all delay. One stranger, however, displayed a more than ordinary eagerness for its coming, and compared the time of his watch repeatedly with the clock of the station.
At length from the far-away distance the wild scream of the engine was heard, and with many a cranking clash and many a heavy sob the vast machine swept smoothly in beneath the vaulted roof. As the stranger moved forward to take his place, he stopped to hear a few words that met his ear. It was a railroad official said: “Mr. Davenport Dunn delayed us about a quarter of an hour; he wanted to give a look at the new pier, but we have nearly made it up already.” “All right!” replied the station-master. The stranger now moved on till he came in front of a coupé carriage, whose window-blinds rigidly drawn down excluded all view from without. For an instant he seemed to fumble at the door, in an endeavor to open it, but was speedily interrupted by a guard calling out, “Not there, sir,—that's a private carriage;” and thus warned, the traveller entered another lower down the line. There were two other travellers in the same compartment, apparently strangers to each other. As the stranger with whom we are immediately concerned took his place, he slipped into his pocket a small latch-key, of which, in the very brief attempt to try the door of the private carriage, he had successfully proved the utility, and, drawing his rug across his knees, lay calmly back.