"Time enough," said the Chief Constable, subsiding with a growl and a glower into the left-hand corner.
A shrill blast from the guard, a whistle and a snort from the engine, and we were irrevocably committed to the untender hands of destiny.
We were an ill-assorted party enough. Fitz the embodiment of masterful determination, with his black eyes glowing with their inward fire; Brasset and Jodey as cheerful and almost as blasé as two undergraduates on their way to attend a point-to-point race meeting; Coverdale and the humble individual responsible for this narrative, silent, saturnine and profoundly uncomfortable.
It is true that I was favoured with one fragment of the Chief Constable's discourse. It was communicated with pregnant brevity ten miles from Bedford.
"You old fool!" was its context.
"It was Fitz who kept the train for you," I countered weakly.
Whoever was to blame we were fairly in for it now; and to repine was vain.
"I am glad about your friend O'What's-his-name," said Fitz to Jodey. "A man of his hands, hey? By the way, I believe you did mention a revolver."
My relation by marriage grinned an almost disgustingly effusive affirmative.
"I suppose you fellows have all remembered to bring one?"