Then, as my female persecutress alighted on the floor of the compartment in the limp condition of a collapse, I stepped across to my original seat, and endeavoured to look as if with withers unwrung. Presently the Guard appeared, and what followed I can best render in the dramatical form of a dialogue:—
The Guard (addressing the Elderly Female, who is sitting smiling with vacuity beneath the bell-pull). So it is you who have sounded the alarm! What is it all about?
The Elderly Female (with warm indignation). Me? I never did! I am too much of the lady. It was that young coloured gentleman in the next compartment.
[At which the tip of my nose goes down with apprehensiveness.
The Guard. Indeed! A likely story! How could the gentleman ring this bell from where he is?
Myself (with mental presence). Well said, Mister Guard! The thing is not humanly possible. Rem acu tetigisti!
The Guard. I do not understand Indian, Sir. If you have anything to say about this affair, you had better say it.
Myself (combining discretion with magnanimousness). As a chivalrous, I must decline to bring any accusation against a member of the weaker sex, and my tongue is hermetically sealed.
The Eld. F. It was him who rang the alarm, and not me. He was in this compartment, and I in that.
The Guard. What? have you been playing at Hide-and-seek together, then? But if your story is watertight, he must have rung the bell in a state of abject bodily terror, owing to your chivying him about!