“By Jove!” said Mr. Wise. Miss Brown, after lifting up her skirt carefully, knelt upon her petticoat.
An ebony ticket-inspector rushed into the compartment.
“Ull right! Ull right!” he shouted. “Ull ovah! Nobuddy killed!”
“Certainly not,” said Mr. Wise. “Why should they be? Only a faint.”
“Earthquake, sah, earthquake!” yelled the inspector. “Jes’ look at the steeple daown in taown!”
There was no steeple to look at.
“My—what an eventful journey!” said the lady novelist.
“Poor little thing,” said Miss Brown to the suffragette, in almost human tones. “Better now, better now?”
The suffragette began to struggle a little. Even had she been in her grave, I think pity would have aroused a spark of militant protest in her bones.
“Tell her to make an effort,” said the lady novelist, who had never in her forty years been guilty of physical weakness. “Pretend not to notice her. Probably hysteria.”