"I telling the Mem-sahib," begins the guard plaintively, "that there is one with only——"
"Don't care if there is! Horace, undo that bundle. I'm going to bed at once," and the newcomer proceeds to remove her coat and hat.
The guard hastily lets down the two upper bunks and disappears as the train gets under way again.
Appalled at the idea of how much she may think it necessary to remove, and thankful that you are sleeping peacefully through all the turmoil, I get up and grope for my shoes.
"If you prefer the lower bunk it is at your service," I say, making the best of a bad job and gathering up my coverlets. She deigns to snap out "Thanks!"
"I will go outside until you're ready," I say, retreating to the small platform between the carriages; there is nothing else for it, as there isn't room to turn inside. Just as I leave I add to the man, "Don't wake the boy if you can help it, he has had a hard day."
It is intensely cold outside, and after having smoked two cigarettes I think I may venture in again as I hear no sounds, so I knock, and getting no answer enter. By the dim light I make out the form of the lady in my bunk; but that is surely not the brother in the one opposite? It is! The impudence of it! They have turned you out and made you go into the upper one. As I climb to my own perch, internally wrathful and debating whether I shall not poke the man up and make him restore you to your place, I hear your sleepy voice in a stage whisper—
"He made me come up here." Then deliberately, leaning over and with mischief in your voice, you add: "I suppose when you are fat like that it would be very difficult to climb."
I think you got your own back! I saw the fellow squirm!
Bad as they were at night our fellow-travellers are worse in the daytime. They won't get up until ten o'clock, and we have to stay outside until they do, as there is nowhere to sit down. Ramaswamy brings us chota hazri, consisting of tea and toast and plantains, and we eat it outside. The Englishman in the next compartment looks out presently and invites us in. He laughs when he hears of our adventure. "Brutes!" he says tersely; "people like that should be hanged at sight. The worst is you meet them travelling more often than elsewhere; they have come into some money probably, and are so proud of it they think themselves little gods."