The youth scrambled to a seat as the door slammed behind him; remarked that it was “a near shave”; and laughed nervously as if to assure me that he found it a joke.  His face was pink with running, and the colour contrasted unpleasantly with his pale sandy hair and moustache.  He wore a light check suit, a light-blue tie knotted through a “Mizpah” ring, a white straw hat with a blue ribbon, and two finger-rings set with sham diamonds—­altogether the sort of outfit that its owner would probably have described as “rather nobby.”  Feeling that just now it needed a few repairs, he opened the bag, pulled out a duster and flicked away for half-a-minute at his brown boots.  Next with a handkerchief he mopped his face and wiped round the inner edge first of his straw hat, and then of his collar and cuffs.  After this he stood up, shook his trousers till they hung with a satisfying gracefulness, produced a cigar-case—­covered with forget-me-nots in crewel work—­and a copy of the Sporting Times, sat down again, and asked me if I could oblige him with a light.

I think the train had neared Dawlish before the cigar was fairly started, and his pink face hidden behind the pink newspaper.  But even so between the red sandstone cliffs and the wholesome sea this pink thing would not sit still.  His diamond rings kept flirting round the edge of the Sporting Times, his brown boots shifting their position on the cushion in front of him, his legs crossing, uncrossing, recrossing, his cigar-smoke rising in quick, uneasy puffs.

Between Teignmouth and Newton Abbot this restlessness increased.  He dropped some cigar-ash on his waistcoat and arose to shake it off.  Twice or thrice he picked up the paper and set it down again.  As we ran into Newton Abbot Station, he came over to my side of the carriage and scanned the small crowd upon the platform.  Suddenly his pink cheeks flushed to crimson.  The train was slowing to a standstill, and while he hesitated with a hand on the door, a little old man came trotting down the platform—­a tremulous little man, in greenish black broadcloth, eloquent of continued depression in some village retail trade.  His watery eyes shone brimful of pride and gladness.

“Whai, Charley, lad, there you be, to be shure; an’ lookin’ as peart as a gladdy!  Shaaeke your old vather’s vist, lad—­ees fay, you be lookin’ well!”

The youth, scorched with a miserable shame, stepped out, put his hand in his father’s, and tried to withdraw him a little up the platform and out of my hearing.

“Noa, noa; us’ll bide where us be, zoa’s to be ’andy vur the train when her starts off.  Her doan’t stay no while.  I vound Zam Emmet zarving here as porter—­you mind Zam?  Danged if I knawed ’en, vurst along, the vace of ’en’s that altered:  grawed a beard, her hev.  But her zays to me, ‘How be gettin’ ‘long, Isaac?’ an’ then I zaw who ‘twas—­an’ us fell to talkin’, and her zaid the train staps vaive minnits, no more nor less.”