“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure.”
He laid his hand on my shoulder. He struck me as familiar, but well-intentioned. He said—
“We have all of us been there.”
I thought he was alluding to the Isle of Wight. I said—
“And this is the best time of the year for it, so I’m told.” It was early summer time.
He said—“It’s all right in summer, and it’s good enough in winter—while it lasts. You make the most of it, young ’un;” and he slapped me on the back and laughed.
He would have irritated me in another minute. I paid for the seats and left him.
At half-past eight the next morning Minnie and I started for the coach-office. I call her Minnie, not with any wish to be impertinent, but because I have forgotten her surname. It must be ten years since I last saw her. She was a pretty girl, too, with those brown eyes that always cloud before they laugh. Her aunt did not drive down with us as she had intended, in consequence of a headache. She was good enough to say she felt every confidence in me.
The old booking-clerk caught sight of us when we were about a quarter of a mile away, and drew to us the attention of the coachman, who communicated the fact of our approach to the gathered passengers. Everybody left off talking, and waited for us. The boots seized his horn, and blew—one could hardly call it a blast; it would be difficult to say what he blew. He put his heart into it, but not sufficient wind. I think his intention was to welcome us, but it suggested rather a feeble curse. We learnt subsequently that he was a beginner on the instrument.
In some mysterious way the whole affair appeared to be our party. The booking-clerk bustled up and helped Minnie from the cart. I feared, for a moment, he was going to kiss her. The coachman grinned when I said good-morning to him. The passengers grinned, the boots grinned. Two chamber-maids and a waiter came out from the hotel, and they grinned. I drew Minnie aside, and whispered to her. I said—