“Are you John Pooke?”
“To be sure I am.”
In another moment the young fellow was beside the boat.
“Here, Kitty Alone! Lend a hand. I’m crippled with these precious parcels. This blessed box-hat has given me trouble. The string came undone, and down it went. I have to carry the concern tucked under my arm; and the parcel’s bursting. It’s my new suit dying to show itself, and so is getting out of this brown-paper envelope as fast as it may.”
“We are very late,” said Kate anxiously. “The tide is running out hard, and it is a chance if we get over.”
“Right, Kitty. I’ll settle the hat-box and the new suit--brass buttons--what d’ye think of that? And straps to my trousers. I shall be fine--a blazer, Kitty--a blazer!”
“Do sit down, John; it is but a chance if we get across. You are so late.”
“The Atmospheric did it, for one--my hat for the other, tumbling in the darkness out of the box, and in the tunnel too. Fancy if the train had gone over it! I’d have wept tears of blood.”
“Do, John Pooke, do sit down and take an oar.”
“I’ll sit down in a minute, when I’ve put my box-hat where I nor you can kick it about, and the new suit where the water can’t stain it.”