I smiled. "I am glad to see," I observed genially, "that on my line at any rate even the commander-in-chief cannot pass the sentries unchallenged. Your sense of duty shall not go unrewarded; let me have your card."
He stared at me stonily.
"Don't you recognise me?" I asked.
"Tickets, please," he repeated.
I have never seen a face so lacking in that gracious trustfulness which is at once the pride and the adornment of the normal ticket-collector. I think in his youth he must have committed a murder or robbed an orchard, for the shadow of a crime seemed to hang over him. I felt instinctively that he was not fit to play the part I had allotted to him.
I looked back. Smithers was pluckily doing up his bootlace several yards away; a tactless grin seemed to desolate his features. The grin decided me.
"Smithers," I called, "hurry up with the tickets; the inspector is waiting for them. Good day, inspector."
And I walked briskly from the station.
"One hundred and seventy started out, the number including the best of the English players and the entire American continent."