st, alone on the platform, but stacked about by such a miscellany
of luggage as gave him no slight resemblance to Crusoe on his raft.
Besides parcels, boxes, carpet-bags, canvas-bags, tarpaulin-bags, it
included a pile of furniture swathed in straw, a parrot-cage covered
with baize, and a stone jar calculated to hold nine gallons of liquor.

He was a dark-bearded man, heavy shouldered, of great bulk, and by
temperament apparently phlegmatic; for when Captain Cai arrived,
panting, red in the face, stammering contrition, he betrayed neither
emotion nor surprise.

"'Twas all my thoughtlessness!" cried Captain Cai.

"What's the matter?" asked Captain Tobias. "No hurry, is there?
We've retired."

"If I'd known I was so late!"

"Five minutes." Captain Tobias gazed across at the station clock, then
at his friend's face, as if comparing the two. "You've altered your
appearance recently. Which some might say 'twas for the better."

"Glad you think so," said Captain Cai, modestly pleased.

"Others, again, mightn't. But, there!" added Captain Tobias with sudden
intensity. "Who cares what folks say? If you chose to go about like a
Red Indian, 'twouldn' be no affair o' _theirs_, I should hope?"

"Why, o' course not," Captain Cai agreed, albeit a trifle dashed.
"As you say, we've retired, an' can do as we like."

"Ah!" Captain Tobias eyed him and drew a long breath. "Got such a thing
as a match about ye?" he asked, pulling forth a short clay pipe.

"No--yes!" Captain Cai, clapping a hand to either hip, was about to
admit that he had come without pipe, tobacco, or matches, when he felt
something hard and angular within the left pocket, and (to his
confusion) produced--a silver matchbox. "Good Lord!" he exclaimed
stupidly.

"That's a pretty trifle," said Captain Tobias, possessing himself of the
box and extracting a match from it. "Where did ye pick it up, now!"

"From a--a lady--a Mrs Bosenna." Captain Cai recovered the box, pocketed
it, and desperately changed the subject. "What's become of all the
porters hereabouts?" he demanded. "Leavin' us alone an' all this
luggage, like a wreck ashore!"

"I sent 'em away," Captain Tobias explained with composure, "knowin' as
you'd turn up sooner or later. Who's Mrs Bosenna?"

"She's our landlady; a widow-woman. She lives up the valley yonder."
Captain Cai jerked a thumb in that direction, and with renewed anxiety
looked about for a porter. "Hadn't we better whistl