Rex turned to his cousin, his winning, deprecating manner warning Reed but softening him against his will.  “Carty,” he said, “there’s nothing for it, but for you to take one chap and I the other and see ’em home.  It’s only a little after seven and we ought to be able to meet by half-past eight—­at the Hotel Netherland, say—­that’s near the Rush’s.  We’ll have to give up dinner, but we’ll get a sandwich somewhere, and we’ll do.  I’ll take Strong because he’s more troublesome—­I think I can manage him.  It’s awfully good of you, and I can tell you I appreciate it.  But it wouldn’t be civilized to do less, old Carty, would it?” And Reed found himself, grumbling but docile, linked to the suicide’s arm, and guiding his shuffling foot-steps in the way they should go.

“Now, we’ll both kill ourselves, old Carty, won’t we?” Rex heard his cousin’s charge mumble cheerfully as they started off, with a visible lengthening of his gloom at the thought of companionship at death.

Strong was marching along with an unearthly decorum that should have made Fairfax suspicious.  But instead it cheered his optimistic soul immensely.  “Good for you old man,” he said encouragingly.  “At this rate we’ll get you home in no time.”  And Billy, at that second, thrust out his great shoulder into the crowd, and almost knocked a man down.  The man, whirled sidewise in front of them, glared savagely.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.  Strong, to whom nothing would have given more joy than a tussle, bent down and peered into the other’s face.

“Is it a man or a monkey?” he piped, and shrieked with laughter.

The man’s strained temper broke suddenly and Rex caught him by the arm as he was about to spring for Strong, and promptly threw himself between the two.

“Look here, Billy,” he remonstrated, “if you fight anybody it’s got to be me,” and he spoke over his shoulder to the stranger.  “You see what I’m up against.  I’m getting him home—­do just go on,” and the man went.

But Billy’s head was in his guardian’s neck and he was spluttering and sobbing.  “Fight you?  Nev’—­s’ help me—­nev’—­Fight poor, ole fool Recky—­bes’ fren’ ev’ had?  No sir.  I wouldn’ fight you Recky,” and he raised a tear-stained face and gazed mournfully into his eyes.  “D’ye think I’d——­”

“Oh, shut up!” Rex ejaculated, “and hold your head up, Billy.  You make me sick.”

The intoxicated heavy freight being under way again, Rex looked about for the rest of the train, but in vain.  After a halt of a minute or so he decided that they were lost and would have to stay lost, the situation being too precarious, in this land of policemen, with one hundred and ninety pounds of noisy uncertainty on his hands, to risk any unnecessary movement.  Billy kept every breath of time alive and varied.  Within two minutes of the first adventure he managed to put his elbow clearly and forcibly into a small man’s mouth, and before the other could resent it: