"Daniel Dyer! Jane! How dare you behave in such a manner!"
The red-faced gentleman twisted himself round in his seat.
"Beg pardon, miss--was you speaking to me? If you're alone, I dare say there's another gentleman present who'll be willing to oblige. Every young lady ought to have a gent to herself on a day like this. Do me the favour of putting this to your lips; you'll find it's the right stuff."
Taking out a flat bottle, wiping it upon the sleeve of his coat, he offered it to my aunt. She succumbed.
When I found myself a struggling unit in the struggling mass on the Crystal Palace platform, my aunt caught me by the arm.
"Thomas, where have you brought us to?"
"This is the Crystal Palace, aunt."
"The Crystal Palace! It's pandemonium! Where are the members of our party?"
That was the question. My aunt collared such of them as she could lay her hands on. Matthew Holman was missing. Personally, I was not sorry. He had been "putting his lips" to more than one friendly bottle in the compartment behind mine, and was on a fair way to having a "nice day" on lines of his own. I was quite willing that he should have it by himself. But my aunt was not. She was for going at once for the police and commissioning them to hunt for and produce him then and there.
"I'm responsible for the man," she kept repeating. "I have his ticket."