“Ah, it would look like it,” said the clerk, nodding, and letting his pen slip from behind his ear, so that it fell, sticking its nib like an arrow in the boarded floor.
“Yes; I wasn’t a bit surprised to see a dark good-looking gentleman on the platform, peeping into every carriage as the train drew up; and I managed to be close to her door as the gent opened it and held out his hand.”
“‘Why didn’t you come first-class, you foolish girl?’ he says in a whisper; and she didn’t answer, only gave a low moan, like, and let him help her out on to the platform, when he draws her arm right through his, so as to support her well, catches up her little bag, and walks her along towards George here; and I felt so interested, that I followed ’em, just to see how matters went.”
“You felt reg’lar suspicious then?” said one of the porters.
“I just did, my lad; so that as soon as they’d passed George here, him giving up the girl’s ticket, I wasn’t a bit surprised to see a great stout fellow in a velveteen jacket and a low-crowned hat step right in front of ’em just as my gent had called up a cab, lay one hand on the girl’s arm, and the other on the gent’s breast, and he says, in a rough, country sort o’ way: ‘Here, I want you.’”
“Just like a detective,” said the clerk.
“Not a bit, my lad—not a bit,” said the guard. “Reg’lar bluff gamekeeper sort of chap, who looked as if he wouldn’t stand any nonsense; and as soon as she saw him, the girl gives a little cry, and looks as if she’d drop, while my gent begins to bluster.—‘Stand aside, fellow,’ he says. ‘How dare you! Stand back!’ The big bluff fellow seemed so staggered by the gent’s way, that for just about a moment he was checked. Then he takes one step forward, and look here—he does so.”
“Oh!” shouted the clerk, for the guard brought down one muscular hand sharply upon his shoulder and gripped him tightly.
“Lor’ bless you, my lad! that’s nothing to it. He gripped that gent’s shoulder so that you a’most heard his collar-bone crack; and he turned yellow and gashly like, as the other says to him with a growl as savage as a bear, ‘You want to wed my sister, eh? Well, you shall. I won’t leave you till you do.’”
“That was business and no mistake,” said the other guard; “wasn’t it?”