“Late! Are you the man that's running this lecture course?”
“Well, sir, I have the management of it.”
“You have, have you? Then permit me to tell you right here, my friend, that you ought to sublet the contract to a five-year-old boy. You let me get out in the cold—send no conveyance as you agreed—”
“We sent our wagon, sir, to the station. You could have gone in and warmed yourself, and if it had not arrived you could have telephoned—the station is always warm.”
“You have the impudence to tell me that I don't know whether a station is closed or not, and that I can't see a wagon when it is hauled up alongside a depot?”
The clammy hands went up in protest: “If you will listen, sir, I will—”
“No, sir, I will listen to nothing.” and I forged ahead into a small room where five or six belated people were hanging up their coats and hats.
But the Immaculate still persisted:
“This is not where—Will you come into the dressing-room, sir? We have a nice warm room for the lecturers on the other side of the—”
“No—sir; I won't go another step, except on to that platform, and I'm not very anxious now to get there—not until I put something inside of me—” (here I unstrapped my bag) “to save me from an attack of pneumonia.” (I had my flask out now and the cup filled to the brim.) “When I think of how hard I worked to get here and how little you—” (and down it went at one gulp).