CHAPTER XXIV—DUKE NINEVEH ENTERS
As the years passed the two boys grew into explorers of the undiscovered countries that lie behind the tail-treed reticence of people’s minds. Their sole equipment for these gallant raids was a daring sort of kindness.
Ruddy’s actions were inspired by good nature and high spirits; Teddy’s by introspection and a determination to inquire. He was possessed by a relentless curiosity to find out how things worked.
By a dramatic turn of luck their faculty for curious friendships flung the whole Sheerug household, and Jimmie Boy with it, high up on the strand of what Mrs. Sheerug would have termed “a secure nincome.”
At the time when this happened Teddy was already getting his hand in by helping his father with the letter-press for his illustrated volumes. Ruddy, much to Mrs. Sheerug’s disgust, had announced his intention of “going on the sands,” by which he meant becoming a pierrot.
One sparkling morning in June they were setting out for Brighton. Ruddy had heard of a troupe who were playing there and was anxious to add to his store of pierrot-knowledge. At the last moment, as the train was moving, a distinguished looking man who had been dawdling on the platform seemed to make up his mind to travel by it Paying no heed to the warning shouts of porters, as coolly as if he had been catching a passing bus, he leapt on the step of the boys’ third-class smoker, unlocked the door and entered.
“Handy things to keep about you,” he said, “keys to Tallway carriages. Oh, a third! Thought it was a first. Too bad. Make the best of it.”
There was a cheerful insolence about the way in which he sniffed, “Oh, a third!” addressing nobody in particular and thinking his thoughts aloud. He had a fine, rolling baritone. His aristocratic, drawling way of talking set up an immediate barrier between himself and the world—a barrier which he evidently expected the world to recognize.
Ruddy raised a democratic foot and tapped him on the shin. “Your ticket’s a third. It’s in your hand.”
The distinguished looking man leant down and flapped his trousers with his glove where the democratic foot had touched it Then he fixed Ruddy with a haughty stare. “Ah! So it is. Chap must have given it me in error.”