a melting eye on him. She turned the other on me, melting but compelling. We were both quelled. Barshott ceased frowning. I sat down again.

"I know," continued this serpent, holding both her rabbits with her eye, "that you won't refuse me this tiny favour. It will be simply too frightfully kind of you."

"Oh, not at all."

The doctor at this point eyebrowed us into another, evidently with the intention of clinching us. The Matron, now taking it for granted that we were going to be too frightfully kind, got down to details.

"One of the two you know -that long R.E. fellow who came to grief on the pologround. He's a lying-down case, dislocated hip, quite tame, and very helpless. The other's a sun case, rather a dear, but just a little queer at times."

To Barshott, who tapped his

head in an understanding way, she hastened to add

Oh no! not that! Nothing like so bad as that. Oh, dear me, no! He's quite quite, if you follow me, but not too too."

"Quite quite mad," I supposed, "and not too too sane."

"Ah, you will have your joke, Captain Lugard. But really he's rather a dear. Then at Bombay the R.A.M.C. people meet them with an ambulance and you're quit of them, and will have done me a very great favour. There'll be a reserved compartment on the train tomorrow night at ten o'clock. You'll find your charges safely tucked in, and all you'll have to do is to get in with them." She made several airy gestures with her hand to show how easy it all would be.

We said yes, of course, to this very tiny favour or this very great favour. Later we bitterly repented it.

Next night we joined the train and found our two charges settled in. We both knew the hip case, and so in a way Barshott was justified in saying, "Hullo, Hip!" But the other was a stranger and rather queer, and I felt that Barshott should not have started calling him "Sun" right away. Hip occupied a lower berth, and was perfectly static there. But Sun was making noises in the bathroom attached to the car

riage, and through the halfopen door appeared to be washing his teeth and using his boot as a tooth glass. I remarked to Barshott that this looked ominous. But Barshott replied

"Leave him to me. I'm great with lunies. I always humour them."

"In that case," I said, "I'll take the lower berth alongside of Hip, who won't want humouring, and you the upper

hurried past and disappeared into the stationmaster's office. "Let's get out and have a cigarette," said Barshott.

We got out just as we were, sleeping suits and slippers, but with true Indian caution put on our hats. We strolled to the bower, lit up, and Barshott resumed his tale of the night.

"The first time the beast woke me he asked me whether I was a real captain or a Salvation Army captain. You know I always humour them, and I told him that actually I was General Booth travelling in disguise, and mum's the word. The swine winked one of his pullet's eyes at me, and said nothing. Next time it was to ask if the glass was rising. I tapped my window and said, 'Like winking.' He switched on the light then, leaned across, and said, 'Funny old General Booth.' Next time he said something about my kindly getting him a dish of shrimps, but I took no notice. Then he asked me if I had seen any hooflas about. Like an ass I asked him what a hoofla was. He gave the most horrible mirthless cackle, and said, confound him, My dear Booth, a hoofla is a man who leads blind monkeys to the pictures.' I told him to stow his garbage or I'd throw him on to the floor." "I suppose he found that humoursome," I interjected.

"He may have," said Barshott. "Anyway, he shut up. I dislike the fellow more than I can say. He's sly and probably malicious."

At this moment Barshott glanced from the bower, and then

"By Jove! She's off!" he yelled.

She was-I mean the train was. We leapt to our feet and ran for it. There were about a hundred yards to do, and under other circumstances we should have done it. The train was still in the stage of a slow glide, and for ten yards we simply devoured space, and were gaining easily on her. Then we each lost a slipper. Madly we still rushed on. Then we each lost our other slipper. Still for a few yards the gravel was spurned from beneath our bare soles. Then gradually the gravel gained on us, and so did the train.

Simultaneously we halted and let fly a despairing yell. So did the engine, louder and much more prolonged than ours, otherwise the guard must have heard us. But no guard's head appeared, and our frantic signal of recall passed unheeded. But another head than the guard's obtruded itself, a squab-faced head, intersected by a maniac grin. Its right arm shot out, its right forefinger shot up, its lips apostrophised it. The whole was then withdrawn. Next moment an empty suitcase flew out through the window, followed by various small articles-a sock, a shoe, a tie. We picked them up later off the ballast with tears and curses. We had now reached the farthest limit of the platform. The train dwindled and

66 Damn that swine!" Both of us said, "We've missed our boat." For our train ran in connection with the mail steamer, which would sail immediately after receiving the passengers and mails. The next boat would leave that day week.

There was something horribly familiar about the whole episode, especially our race with the train. Yes, of course, we had often had nightmares just like that. But, believe me, a nightmare is a trifle compared to real life, with real sharp gravel, flesh and blood feet, and a real train gathering speed and leaving you to miss a very real seven days in England.

Painfully we limped back to our slippers, more painfully we limped along several hundred yards of ballast to recover what Sun had ejected. Then once more we retired to the bowerit was warming up now-to discuss the situation in all its horrible bearings.

First of all, we were landed at Nowhere in sleeping-suits, slippers, hats-" and your signet ring," remarked Barshott.

Add to this one broken suitcase (mine), one sock (Barshott's), one tie (mine), one shoe (his). Sun had been sane enough during the few seconds which had elapsed after drawing in his head to come to a lightning decision as to what things would be most utterly useless to us and to throw these out.

"I said he was malicious," remarked Barshott.

Our boat was lost, and with it seven out of about sixty days in England. There was no remedying that. A small ray of light filtered into our darkened souls when we realised that our train would in about two hours' time be reaching and halting at the important junction of J., that a wire to Hip and another to the stationmaster at J. would ensure our kit being taken out there, where we, coming by the next train whenever that might happen along, would recapture it. Barshott even talked of wiring for a special and catching the boat, but a signet ring won't run to specials, and he dropped the idea.

Yes, of course we'd wire to Hip and the J. stationmaster, and the sooner the the better. The station we were marooned at was a tiny one. Had we but paused a moment before leaving our carriage, we would have realised this, and guessed

that a mail train would never stop with intent to loiter at such a miserable place, that the signals must have been against her, that her stay would be of the briefest; and further, that the guard had not seen us leave our carriage, or noted