"Tickets, please!"
Mr. Welwyn and I sat next the door, and I accordingly submitted my ticket for inspection. It was approved and returned to me by the collector, an austere person with what Charles Surface once described as "a damned disinheriting countenance."
"Change next stop," he remarked. "Yours, sir?"
Mr. Welwyn handed him three tickets. The collector appeared to count them. Then his gloomy gaze fell upon the unconscious Miss Welwyn, who from the safe harbourage of her mother's arms was endeavouring to administer to him what is technically known, I believe, as The Glad Eye.
"Have you a ticket for that child, madam?" he enquired. "Too old to be carried."
Mrs. Welwyn looked helplessly at her husband, who replied for her.
"Yes, surely. Did n't I give it to you, my man?"
"No, sir," said the collector dryly; "you did not."
Mr. Welwyn began to feel in his pockets.
"That is uncommonly stupid of me," he said. "I must have it somewhere. I thought I put them all in one pocket."