“Mr. Barlitt speaks very highly of Sedleigh,” added Mr. Jackson.
Mike said nothing, which was a good deal better than saying what he would have liked to have said.
[ CHAPTER XXXI
SEDLEIGH]
The train, which had been stopping everywhere for the last half-hour, pulled up again, and Mike, seeing the name of the station, got up, opened the door, and hurled a Gladstone bag out on to the platform in an emphatic and vindictive manner. Then he got out himself and looked about him.
“For the school, sir?” inquired the solitary porter, bustling up, as if he hoped by sheer energy to deceive the traveller into thinking that Sedleigh station was staffed by a great army of porters.
Mike nodded. A sombre nod. The nod Napoleon might have given if somebody had met him in 1812, and said, “So you’re back from Moscow, eh?” Mike was feeling thoroughly jaundiced. The future seemed wholly gloomy. And, so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage-van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the colour of his hair. Also the boots he wore. He hated the station, and the man who took his ticket.
“Young gents at the school, sir,” said the porter, perceiving from Mike’s distrait air that the boy was a stranger to the place, “goes up in the ’bus mostly. It’s waiting here, sir. Hi, George!”
“I’ll walk, thanks,” said Mike frigidly.
“It’s a goodish step, sir.”
“Here you are.”