The Frenchman blinked uncertainly. Thompson added:
“Jamais de ma vie.”
That settled the French porter. He was face to face with one of the national idiosyncrasies of the English, a new one to him and incomprehensible, but he submitted at once to the inevitable. He gave up all idea of cleaning the carriage and Thompson went to sleep again. The boy slept soundly through the whole business.
At half-past seven—the train had been jogging along since six—Thompson woke and said he thought he’d better shave. The proposal struck me as absurd.
“We can’t possibly shave,” I said, “without water.”
Thompson was quite equal to that difficulty. The next time the train stopped—it stopped every ten minutes or so—he hopped out with a folding drinking cup in his hand. He returned with the cup full of hot water. He had got it from the engine driver. He and I shaved. The boy still slept, but, as Thompson pointed out, that did not matter. He was too young to require much shaving.
“Nice boy that,” said Thompson. “Son of an archdeacon; was at Cambridge when the war broke out. Carries a photo of his mother about with him. Only nice boys carry photos of their mothers. He has it in a little khaki-coloured case along with one of the girl he’s going to marry—quite a pretty girl with tously hair and large eyes.”
“Oh, he’s engaged to be married, is he?”
“Of course he is. That sort of boy is sure to be. Just look at him.”
As he lay there asleep his face looked extraordinarily young and innocent. I admitted that he was just the sort of boy who would get engaged to the first girl who took him seriously.