was anxious to blame somebody--the woman for
choice--for the loss of his comfort. He followed her out into the cold,
to become, as you shall hear, like Adam, a tiller of the soil.

CHAPTER V

AN AIR RAID SEEN FROM BELOW

Magic is a disconcerting travelling companion. While seldom actually
conspicuous, it seems to have a mysterious and varying effect on the
surrounding public. I have met travellers by Tube who tell of strange
doings in those regions, when the conductor of one compartment fell
suddenly in love with the conductress of the next, and they ran to each
other and met in the middle of the car. As nobody opened the gates or
rang the bells, the bewildered train stood for hours at Mornington
Crescent before any member of the watching public could find the heart
to interrupt the pretty scene. It is patent that a magic person must
have been the more or less deliberate cause of this episode. Then again,
there is the story of the 'bus that went mad, just as it was leaving its
burrow at Dalston. It got the idea that the kindly public was its
enemy. You should have seen the astonishment of Liverpool Street and
the Bank as it rushed by them. Old ladies about to ask it whether it
went to Clapham--its label said it was bound for Barnes--stood aghast,
and their questions died on their lips. Policemen put up their hands
against it,--it ran over them. It even learned the trick of avoiding the
nimble business man by a cunning little skid just as he thought he had
caught it. You will hardly believe me, but that 'bus ran seven times
round Trafalgar Square, until the lions' tails twisted for giddiness,
and Nelson reeled where he stood. I don't know where it went to that
day, certainly not to Barnes, but late in the evening it burst into
another 'bus's burrow at Tooting, its sides heaving, its tyres worn to
the quick, its windows streaming with perspiration, and a great bruise
on its forehead where a chance bomb had struck it. I believe the poor
thing had to be put out of its misery in the end. And what was the
reason of all this? It was found that a wizard, called Innocent, of
Stoke Newington, had been asleep on the top all the time, having
forgotten to alight the night before, on his return from the City.

Sarah Brown, on the night of Lady Arabel's supper party, was unaware of
the risk she ran in entering a public conveyance in company with a
witch. But she was spared to a merciful extent, for nothing happened on
any