he had found them very
difficult to deal with in regard to compensation, the fop with the
checked trousers having claimed, and finally obtained, an unreasonably
large sum for the trifling injury done to his eye on the occasion of the
accident at Langrye station. Mr Sharp could not however, gratify his
desire. On the contrary, when the checked trousers remarked in passing
that it was "vewy disagweeable weather," he felt constrained to admit,
civilly enough, that it was.

The two fops had a friend with them who was not a fop, but a plain,
practical-looking man, with a forbidding countenance, and a large, tall,
powerful frame. These three retired a little apart from the bustle of
the station, and whispered together in earnest tones. Their names were
the reverse of romantic, for the fop with the checked trousers was
addressed as Smith, he with the long whiskers as Jenkins, and the large
man as Thomson.

"Are you sure he is to go by this train?" asked Thomson, somewhat
gruffly.

"Quite sure. There can be no mistake about it," replied Jenkins, from
whose speech, strange to say, the lisp and drawl had suddenly
disappeared.

"And how are you sure of knowing him, if, as you say, you have never
seen him?" asked Thomson.

"By the bag, of course," answered Smith, whose drawl had also
disappeared unaccountably; "we have got a minute description of the
money-bag which he has had made peculiarly commonplace and shabby on
purpose. It is black leather but very strong, with an unusually thick
flat handle."

"He's very late," observed Thomson, moving uneasily, and glancing at the
clock as the moment of departure drew near.

Mr Sharp observed the consulting party, and sauntered idly towards
them, but they were about as sharp as himself, in practice if not in
name. The lisps and drawls returned as if by magic, and the turf became
the subject of interest about which they were consulting.

Just then a shriek was heard to issue from a female throat, and a stout
elderly woman was observed in the act of dashing wildly across the line
in the midst of moving engines, trucks and vans. Even in these unwonted
circumstances no one who knew her could have mistaken Mrs Durby's
ponderous person for a moment. She had come upon the station at the
wrong side, and, in defiance of all printed regulations to the
contrary--none of which she could read, being short-sighted--she had
made a bold venture to gain her desired position by the most