No good. Shouting after a train is off never is much good. The lord sat down on his seat again, an angry frown crossing his face, and the lunatic got up and danced with rage.
“I do not know where the blame lies,” observed the lord. “Not with my servant, I think: he is attentive, and has been with me some years.”
“I’ll know where it lies,” retorted the lunatic. “I am a director on the line, though I don’t often travel on it. This is management, this is! A few minutes more and we shall be in the dark tunnel.”
“Of course it would have been satisfactory to have a light; but it is not of so much consequence,” said the nobleman, wishing to soothe him. “There’s no danger in the dark.”
“No danger! No danger, sir! I think there is danger. Who’s to know that dog won’t spring out and bite us? Who’s to know there won’t be an accident in the tunnel? A light is a protection against having our pockets picked, if it’s a protection against nothing else.”
“I fancy our pockets are pretty safe to-day,” said the lord, glancing round at us with a good-natured smile; as much as to say that none of us looked like thieves. “And I certainly trust we shall get through the tunnel safely.”
“And I’ll take care the dog does not bite you in the dark,” spoke up the lady, pushing her head forward to give the lunatic a nod or two that you’d hardly have matched for defying impudence. “You’ll be good, won’t you, Wasp? But I should like the lamp lighted myself. You will perhaps be so kind, my lord, as to see that there’s no mistake made about it at the next station!”
He slightly raised his hat to her and bowed in answer, but did not speak. The lunatic buttoned up his coat with fingers that were either nervous or angry, and then disturbed the little gentleman next him, who had read his big book throughout the whole commotion without once lifting his eyes, by hunting everywhere for his pocket-handkerchief.
“Here’s the tunnel!” he cried out resentfully, as we dashed with a shriek into pitch darkness.