“No wonder you can’t get your things in if you take away half the hotel linen,” and she threw them to the other side of the room.

In twenty minutes she had worked the magic of Wiggleswick.  Septimus was humbly grateful.

“If I were you, sir,” she said, “I’d go to the station at once and sit on my boxes till my mistress arrives.”

“I think I’ll do it, Turner,” said Septimus.

Turner went back to Zora flushed, triumphant, and indignant.

“If you think, ma’am,” said she, “that Mr. Dix is going to help us on our journey, you’re very much mistaken.  He’ll lose his ticket and he’ll lose his luggage and he’ll lose himself, and we’ll have to go and find them.”

“You must take Mr. Dix humorously,” said Zora.

“I’ve no desire to take him at all, ma’am.”  And Turner snorted virtuously, as became her station.

Zora found him humbly awaiting her on the platform in company with Clem Sypher, who presented her with a great bunch of roses and a bundle of illustrated papers.  Septimus had received as a parting guerdon an enormous package of the cure, which he embraced somewhat dejectedly.  It was Sypher who looked after the luggage of the party.  His terrific accent filled the station.  Septimus regarded him with envy.  He wondered how a man dared order foreign railway officials about like that.

“If I tried to do it they would lock me up.  I once interfered in a street row.”

Zora did not hear the dire results of the interference.  Sypher claimed her attention until the train was on the point of starting.

“Your address in England?  You haven’t given it.”

“The Nook, Nunsmere, Surrey, will always find me.”

“Nunsmere?” He paused, pencil in hand, and looked up at her as she stood framed in the railway carriage window.  “I nearly bought a house there last year.  I was looking out for one with a lawn reaching down to a main railway track.  This one had it.”

“Penton Court?”

“Yes.  That was the name.”

“It’s still unsold,” laughed Zora idly.

“I’ll buy it at once,” said he.

"En voiture,” cried the guard.

Sypher put out his masterful hand.

“Au revoir.  Remember.  We are friends.  I never say what I don’t mean.”

The train moved out of the station.  Zora took her seat opposite Septimus.

“I really believe he’ll do it,” she said.

“What?”

“Oh, something crazy,” said Zora.  “Tell me about the street row.”

* * * * *