He stopped. Across the line on the wall a large portrait in an advertisement frame had—a cloud of engine smoke disappearing—come into view. Bobbie stared at it.
“The old Lady,” he muttered.
The portrait of her Majesty the Queen of England and Great Britain looked across at Bobbie with, as it seemed to him, a look of surprise, mingled with reproof. A train whistled, a ticket collector shouted, “North Kent train to Blackheath,” but the boy did not move. When the train had started, and the smoke had cleared away, Bobbie found his attention still held by the portrait on the other platform.
“The old Lady,” he quoted, under his breath, “will ’ave the best. She don’t mind what she pays for her navy, but she will ’ave it good. None of your criminals for her navy, if you please.”
He started up, his face white and perspiring. Lugging the weighty portmanteau back to the arrival barrier, he staggered determinedly through.
“Tell you what,” a young officer lad was saying fiercely. “If you porters don’t find that fearful bag of mine I’ll—”
“’Scuse me,” interrupted Bobbie, placing the portmanteau at the feet of its owner. “My mistake. Took it off in the hurry, instead of me own.”
“I’m really most fearfully obliged,” declared the officer lad effusively. “It has my dress suit, don’t you know, and I should have looked such a fearfully silly fool this evening without it.”
“You’re saved from that now, sir,” said the inspector, pointedly.
“What I mean to say is, I’m so fearfully indebted to you that really—”