And when he knew them better Bobbie came to realise that it was only in moments of considerable gravity that Rouse ever called his friend by his proper Christian name.
At the barrier Rouse turned. He seemed suddenly to have remembered the fat boy. At last he observed him making his way flat-footedly and in extreme distress along the platform, and he beckoned.
Arthur increased his speed and came up alongside, breathing heavily and with his mouth open. Rouse looked at him gravely. All the heart seemed to have gone out of him. He drew the ticket-collector’s attention to the fat boy indifferently.
“This boy,” said he, “has come without his ticket. Will you chronicle the incident in your annals?”
The collector looked at him resentfully. In four years Rouse had never yet passed his barrier without saying something to him which he could not for the life of him understand.
“Will you,” continued Rouse, “record his history in your black book?”
The man turned patiently to the fat boy.
“You come without your ticket. How did you do that?”
“He found it easy,” observed Rouse in a hollow voice.
“What’s your name?”