Then the train was really moving out of the station at last. Numberless boys in Harley caps were scrambling into carriages, and as the little man with the goatee beard gave one final wave of his glove to his departing son, two young men cannoned into him from behind, and his hat flew violently forwards and outwards, causing him to make a somewhat ludicrous exit from the boy in the corner’s field of view. Next the foremost of his assailants had sprung for the carriage door and they had tumbled in.
One of the two seemed a little embarrassed at the diversion they had caused, and sat down modestly in a corner. The other wiped his forehead, and then turned and beheld Arthur with both interest and delight.
The portly Arthur was sitting stiffly upright and staring at his ticket with wide protuberant eyes, the while he trembled like unto one smitten with ague. He looked up at the boy in the corner and gaped. He tried to speak. Words failed him. At last a low moan escaped his lips.
“My ticket! My ticket! Father has taken it away with him and he—” he paused and collected himself for a bellow of despair—“he has given me his own return ticket to Ealing!”
The boy in the corner looked at him as if one might have expected something like this would have occurred after all that palaver, and the brief silence that followed his sensational news was only broken by a peculiar grunt that would not be stifled. Then up spoke one of the late arrivals. Both were evidently boys of some seniority and wore bowler hats. The one who spoke now had a lean and humorous countenance lit by strangely bright eyes.
“Nick,” said he to his companion, “look out of the window. Do you see anyone coming?”
The young gentleman addressed as Nick was beaming thoughtfully as if to himself, and he did not at once obey.
“I will look myself,” said the other, rising impatiently and leaning far out. “Yes, I can see a cloud of dust. Right in the middle of it there is the figure of a man bounding along the road at such a break-neck speed that his feet are scarcely touching the ground at all. It appears,” he added, turning to Arthur, “to be your sportsmanlike father.” He coughed. “His chances of catching us are somewhat small, of course. The train is now going at full speed. Your father is certainly making a very fine effort indeed ... his movements are not unlike those of a good-class cat ... but he will, I fear, be outdistanced by the puff-puff. Your father——”
The fat boy could stand this no longer. He pushed his head fiercely out of the window under the other’s arm.
“Where?” he demanded. “Where’s my father?” He looked harder still. “Why,” said he, “we’re only just out of the station. There’s no cloud of dust at all.”