ier and was picked up by a porter. Mannix was
extremely angry. A tall lady, apparently connected with the offensive
red-faced gentleman, observed in perfectly audible tones that schoolboys
ought not to be allowed to travel without some one in charge of them.
Mannix's anger rose to boiling point at this addition of calculated
insult to deliberate injury. He struggled to his feet, intending
then and there to speak some plain truths to his assailant. He was
immediately aware of a pain in his ankle. A pain so sharp as to make
walking quite impossible. The sailor who carried his bag sympathised
with him and helped him into the train. He felt the injured ankle
carefully and came to the conclusion that it was sprained.

Between Kingstown and Dublin Mannix arranged plans for handing over his
assailant to the police. That seemed to him the most dignified form of
revenge open to him. He was fully determined to take it. Unfortunately
his train carried him, slowly indeed, but inexorably, to the station
from which another train, the one in which he was to travel westwards to
Rosnacree, took its departure. The elderly gentleman and the lady with
the insolent manner, whose destination was Dublin itself, had left
Kingstown in a different train. Mannix saw no more of them and so was
unable to get them handcuffed.

Two porters helped him along the platform at Broadstone Station and
settled him in a corner of the breakfast carriage of the westward going
mail. A very sympathetic attendant offered to find out whether there was
a doctor in the train. It turned out that there was not. The sympathetic
attendant, with the help of a young ticket-collector in a neat uniform
offered to do the best he could for his ankle. The cook joined them,
leaving a quantity of bacon hissing in his pan. He was a man of some
surgical knowledge.

"It's hot water," he said, "that's best for the like of that."

"It could be," said the ticket-collector, "that it's broke on him."

"Cold water," said Mannix firmly.

"With a sup of whiskey in it," said the attendant

"If it's broke," said the ticket-collector, "and you go putting whiskey
and water on it it's likely that the young gentleman will be lame for
life."

"Maybe now," said the cook derisively, "you'd be in favour of soda water
with the squeeze of a lemon in it."

"I would not," said the ticket-collector, "but a drop of sweet oil the
way the joint would be kept supple."

"Get a jug of cold water," s