ngly ignorant of technical
parlance.

"It will be in in one minute, my lord."

Sir John's hand was over his lips as he walked back to the carriage,
casting as it were the commander's eye over the field.

"When the crowd is round the train you come and look for me," he said to
the footman, who touched his cockaded hat in silence.

At that moment the train lumbered in, the engine wearing that inanely
self-important air affected by locomotives of the larger build. From all
quarters an army of porters besieged the platform, and in a few seconds
Sir John was in the centre of an agitated crowd. There was one other
calm man on that platform--another man with no parcels, whom no one
sought to embrace. His brown face and close-cropped head towered above
a sea of agitated bonnets. Sir John, whose walk in life had been through
crowds, elbowed his way forward and deliberately walked against Guy
Oscard.

"D--n it!" he exclaimed, turning round. "Ah--Mr. Oscard--how d'ye do?"

"How are you?" replied Guy Oscard, really glad to see him.

"You are a good man for a crowd; I think I will follow in your wake,"
said Sir John. "A number of people--of the baser sort. Got my carriage
here somewhere. Fool of a man looking for me in the wrong place, no
doubt. Where are you going? May I offer you a lift? This way. Here,
John, take Mr. Oscard's parcels."

He could not have done it better in his keenest day. Guy Oscard was
seated in the huge, roomy carriage before he had realised what had
happened to him.

"Your man will look after your traps, I suppose?" said Sir John,
hospitably drawing the fur rug from the opposite seat.

"Yes," replied Guy, "although he is not my man. He is Jack's man,
Joseph."

"Ah, of course; excellent servant, too. Jack told me he had left him
with you."

Sir John leant out of the window and asked the footman whether he knew
his colleague Joseph, and upon receiving an answer in the affirmative
he gave orders--acting as Guy's mouthpiece--that the luggage was to be
conveyed to Russell Square. While these orders were being executed the
two men sat waiting in the carriage, and Sir John lost no time.

"I am glad," he said, "to have this opportunity of thanking you for all
your kindness to my son in this wild expedition of yours."

"Yes," replied Oscard, with a transparent reserve which rather puzzled
Sir John.

"You must excuse me," said the old gentleman, sitting rather stiffly,
"if I appear to take a somewhat