ged to spend his holidays abroad; but
Frinton must, he was convinced, be strangely romantic. The train thither
had an aspect which strengthened this conviction. It consisted largely
of first-class coaches, and in the window of nearly every first-class
compartment and saloon was exhibited a notice: "This compartment (or
saloon) is reserved for members of the North Essex Season-Ticket-Holders
Association." Mr. Prohack, being still somewhat swollen, decided that he
was a member of the North Essex Season-Ticket-Holders Association and
acted accordingly. Otherwise he might never have reached Frinton.

He found himself in a sort of club, about sixty feet by six, where
everybody knew everybody except Mr. Prohack, and where cards and other
games, tea and other drinks, tobacco and other weeds, were being played
and consumed in an atmosphere of the utmost conviviality. Mr. Prohack
was ignored, but he was not objected to. His fellow-travellers regarded
him cautiously, as a new chum. The head attendant and dispenser was very
affable, as to a promising neophyte. Only the ticket-inspector singled
him out from all the rest by stopping in front of him.

"My last hour has come," thought Mr. Prohack as he produced his
miserable white return-ticket.

All stared; the inspector stared; but nothing happened. Mr. Prohack had
a sense of reprieve, and also of having been baptised or inducted into a
secret society. He listened heartily to forty conversations about
physical diversions and luxuries and about the malignant and fatuous
wrong-headedness of men who went on strike, and about the approaching
catastrophic end of all things.

Meanwhile, at any rate in the coach, the fabric of society seemed to be
holding together fairly well. Before the train was half-way to Frinton
Mr. Prohack judged--and rightly--that he was already there. The fact was
that he had been there ever since entering the saloon. After two hours
the train, greatly diminished in length, came to rest in the midst of a
dark flatness, and the entire population of the coach vanished out of it
in the twinkling of an eye, and Mr. Prohack saw the name 'Frinton' on a
flickering oil-lamp, and realised that he was at the gates of the most
fashionable resort in England, a spot where even the ozone was
exclusive. The station staff marvelled at him because he didn't know
where the Majestic Hotel was and because he asked without notice for a
taxi, fly, omnibus or anything on wheels. All t