p! I really must blow this fellow up."

"Stop! there it comes."

Enter the waiter with great dignity, and solemnly deposits before
us--the fish again!

He has had it recooked. We attack it hurriedly, and bid the waiter for
Goodness' sake bring the rest of the dinner _instantly_, or we must
leave it.

"And I'm about half starved," growls Bunker.

More waiting. Five minutes pass. Ten.

"Oh come, I can't stand this!" cries Bunker, jumping up with his
napkin round his neck, and striding over to the head-waiter, where he
stands in a Turveydroppy attitude, leaning against a sideboard with
his arms folded. "Look here!" Bunker ejaculates: "_can_ you be made
to understand that we are in a hurry? Would half a dollar be any
inducement to you to wake up and look around lively? Because we have
got to take those cars in exactly twelve minutes," showing his watch,
"and as the dinner is already paid for, I want to get it before I go."

"Certainly, sir," says the pompous ass with slow indifference, "dinner
directly. John!" to our waiter, who is now placing the meat on the
table, "serve the genl'm'n's dinner _directly_."

Bunker stares at the fellow as Clown stares at Harlequin after having
cut him in two, in dumb amazement at the fact that Harlequin is not in
the least disturbed by being cut in two.

"I wonder," he mutters as he returns to the table, "if that
unmitigated wooden image of a dunderhead would pay any attention if I
were to kick him?"

"No--not if you were to tie a pack of fire-crackers to his coat-tail
and light them. He knows his business too well. The first duty of
an English head-waiter is to be dignified, as it is that of a French
head-waiter to be vigilant and polite."

"Besides," remarks Amy quietly, "I don't suppose the man had an idea
of what you meant by 'those cars,' if he even knew what a half dollar
signified."

"Well, we must be off. Time's up. We shall miss the train. Good-bye,
boys. You can sit still and finish your dinner in peace."

Good-bye to our friends from Paultons--good-bye. And then we rush out,
and _do_ miss the train. It is five o'clock ten minutes and a quarter.

English trains go on time--English dinners don't.

We finally get off at seven o'clock. Just before we leave a waiter
comes up to me and says in a casual manner, "Found your humbreller
yet, sir?"

"No."

"Wat kind of er humbreller was it, sir?"

"Neat little brown silk umbrella, with an ivory handle."

"W'y, I wo