"'I know not! What avails to know?'" reply I, pompously spouting a line out of some forgotten poem that has lurked in my memory, and now struts out, to the anger and discomfiture of Mr. Musgrave.
"Ah! here are the doors opening."
Everybody pours out on to the platform, and into the empty and expectant train.
Sir Roger and I get into a carriage—not a coupé this time—and dispose our myriad parcels above our heads, under our feet. Trucks roll, and porters bawl past; luggage is violently shot into vans. The last belated, panting passenger has got in. The doors are slammed-to. Off we go! The train is already in motion when the young man jumps on the step and thrusts in his hand for one parting shake.
"Mon tout," say I, screwing up my face into a crying shape, and speaking in a squeaky, pseudo-tearful voice, "je ne saurai vous le dire!"
Then he is hustled off by an indignant guard and three porters, and we see him no more. I throw myself back into my corner laughing.
"General," say I, "I think your young friend is nearly as soft-hearted as the girl in Tennyson who was
'Tender over drowning flies.'
He looked as if he were going to weep, did not he? and what on earth about?"