"'Eere's 'opeless 'Arry," said Dick, going to meet him.
"Wi't'yoong spark in thot trim," said the porter, pocketing a tip of weight to gratify without astounding, "Ah'd'a' pushed onto Lunnon wi' 'im in t'car."
"Not if you'd borrered it, Mr. 'Opeless. She belongs to a Mr. Mills o' Melborough—Na-ow! Melchard o' Millsborough. 'E's one o' them there painful dentisters."
A sound like a smothered sneeze, followed by a syncopated gurgle, coming from behind him, warned Dick to tone down the comic relief.
"You get the car run into cover, and keep an eye on 'er till that there Pluck-'em-W'ile-yer-Wait comes a sorrowing arter 'er. Tell 'im my address is No. 5, John Street, London, and I'll settle for the bit o' damage. There's no need to bring 'is young lordship in. There's plenty o' wailin' an' gnashin' comin' to 'im, any'ow."
In a sad-coloured notebook, with a stump of dirty pencil, the porter solemnly noted that classic address.
"An' that's more trouble for you, so 'ere's a few more bits o' wot we takes it for."
Four minutes late, the train rumbled in.
With less difficulty than it had taken to extract him from the car, Dick and the porter got Melchard into the corner of a first-class compartment of the last carriage on the train—behind the guard's van even, being the London "slip," the porter told them as he slapped his "engaged" label on the window.
The guard was on the point of waving his flag when the staccato rush of a motor-cycle sounded hideously outside the little station.