LITMIR.BIZ

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some remark, but, instead, got up and looked through the open window.

      “Where’s that porter?” Mike heard him say.

      The porter came skimming down the platform at that moment.

      “Porter.”

      “Sir?”

      “Are those frightful boxes of mine in all right?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Because, you know, there’ll be a frightful row if any of them get lost.”

      “No chance of that, sir.”

      “Here you are, then.”

      “Thank you, sir.”

      The youth drew his head and shoulders in, stared at Mike again, and finally sat down. Mike noticed that he had nothing to read, and wondered if he wanted anything; but he did not feel equal to offering him one of his magazines. He did not like the looks of him particularly. Judging by appearances, he seemed to carry enough side for three. If he wanted a magazine, thought Mike, let him ask for it.

      The other made no overtures, and at the next stop got out. That explained his magazineless condition. He was only travelling a short way.

      “Good business,” said Mike to himself. He had all the Englishman’s love of a carriage to himself.

      The train was just moving out of the station when his eye was suddenly caught by the stranger’s bag, lying snugly in the rack.

      And here, I regret to say, Mike acted from the best motives, which is always fatal.

      He realised in an instant what had happened. The fellow had forgotten his bag.

      Mike had not been greatly fascinated by the stranger’s looks; but, after all, the most supercilious person on earth has a right to his own property. Besides, he might have been quite a nice fellow when you got to know him. Anyhow, the bag had better be returned at once. The train was already moving quite fast, and Mike’s compartment was nearing the end of the platform.

      He snatched the bag from the rack and hurled it out of the window. (Porter Robinson, who happened to be in the line of fire, escaped with a flesh wound.) Then he sat down again with the inward glow of satisfaction which comes to one when one has risen successfully to a sudden emergency.

      The glow lasted till the next stoppage, which did not occur for a good many miles. Then it ceased abruptly, for the train had scarcely come to a standstill when the opening above the door was darkened by a head and shoulders. The head was surmounted by a bowler, and a pair of pince-nez gleamed from the shadow.

      “Hullo, I say,” said the stranger. “Have you changed carriages, or what?”

      “No,” said Mike.

      “Then, dash it, where’s my frightful bag?”

      Life teems with embarrassing situations. This was one of them.

      “The fact is,” said Mike, “I chucked it out.”

      “Chucked it out! what do you mean? When?”

      “At the last station.”

      The guard blew his whistle, and the other jumped into the carriage.

      “I thought you’d got out there for good,” explained Mike. “I’m awfully sorry.”

      “Where is the bag?”

      “On the platform at the last station. It hit a porter.”

      Against his will, for he wished to treat the matter with fitting solemnity, Mike grinned at the recollection. The look on Porter Robinson’s face as the bag took him in the small of the back had been funny, though not intentionally so.

      The bereaved owner disapproved of this levity; and said as much.

      “Don’t grin, you little beast,” he shouted. “There’s nothing to laugh at. You go chucking bags that don’t belong to you out of the window, and then you have the frightful cheek to grin about it.”

      “It wasn’t that,” said Mike hurriedly. “Only the porter looked awfully funny when it hit him.”

      “Dash the porter! What’s going to happen about my bag? I can’t get out for half a second to buy a magazine without your flinging my things about the platform. What you want is a frightful kicking.”

      The situation was becoming difficult. But fortunately at this moment the train stopped once again; and, looking out of the window, Mike saw a board with East Wobsley upon it in large letters. A moment later Bob’s head appeared in the doorway.

      “Hullo, there you are,” said Bob.

      His eye fell upon Mike’s companion.

      “Hullo, Gazeka!” he exclaimed. “Where did you spring from? Do you know my brother? He’s coming to Wrykyn this term. By the way, rather lucky you’ve met. He’s in your house. Firby-Smith’s head of Wain’s, Mike.”

      Mike gathered that Gazeka and Firby-Smith were one and the same person. He grinned again. Firby-Smith continued to look ruffled, though not aggressive.

      “Oh, are you in Wain’s?” he said.

      “I say, Bob,” said Mike, “I’ve made rather an ass of myself.”

      “Naturally.”

      “I mean, what happened was this. I chucked Firby-Smith’s portmanteau out of the window, thinking he’d got out, only he hadn’t really, and it’s at a station miles back.”

      “You’re a bit of a rotter, aren’t you? Had it got your name and address on it, Gazeka?”

      “Yes.”

      “Oh, then it’s certain to be all right. It’s bound to turn up some time. They’ll send it on by the next train, and you’ll get it either to-night or to-morrow.”

      “Frightful nuisance, all the same. Lots of things in it I wanted.”

      “Oh, never mind, it’s all right. I say, what have you been doing in the holidays? I didn’t know you lived on this line at all.”

      From this point onwards Mike was out of the conversation altogether. Bob and Firby-Smith talked of Wrykyn, discussing events of the previous term of which Mike had never heard. Names came into their conversation which were entirely new to him. He realised that school politics were being talked, and that contributions from him to the dialogue were not required. He took up his magazine again, listening the while. They were discussing Wain’s now. The name Wyatt cropped up with some frequency. Wyatt was apparently something of a character. Mention was made of rows in which he had played a part in the past.

      “It must be pretty rotten for him,” said Bob. “He and Wain never get on very well, and yet they have to be together, holidays as well as term. Pretty bad having a step-father at all—­I shouldn’t care to—­and when your house-master and your step-father are the same man, it’s a bit thick.”

      “Frightful,” agreed Firby-Smith.

      “I swear, if I were in Wyatt’s place, I should rot about like anything. It isn’t as if he’d anything to look forward to when he leaves. He told me last term that Wain had got a nomination for him in some beastly bank, and that he was going into it directly after the end of this term. Rather rough on a chap like Wyatt. Good cricketer and footballer, I mean, and all that sort of thing. It’s just the sort of life he’ll hate most. Hullo, here we are.”

      Mike looked out of the window. It was Wrykyn at last.

CHAPTER III

       MIKE FINDS A FRIENDLY NATIVE

       Table

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