It was not worth thinking about; and yet, for my life, I could not help pondering upon it,—­pondering, wondering, conjecturing, turning it over and over in my mind, and beating my brains for a solution of the enigma.  I thought of it all the way from Blackwater to Clayborough.  I thought of it all the way from Clayborough to Dumbleton, as I rattled along the smooth highway in a trim dog-cart drawn by a splendid black mare, and driven by the silentest and dapperest of East Anglian grooms.

We did the nine miles in something less than an hour, and pulled up before the lodge-gates just as the church-clock was striking half past seven.  A couple of minutes more, and the warm glow of the lighted hall was flooding out upon the gravel, a hearty grasp was on my hand, and a clear jovial voice was bidding me “Welcome to Dumbleton.”

“And now, my dear fellow,” said my host, when the first greeting was over, “you have no time to spare.  We dine at eight, and there are people coming to meet you; so you must just get the dressing business over as quickly as may be.  By the way, you will meet some acquaintances.  The Biddulphs are coming, and Prendergast (Prendergast, of the Skirmishers) is staying in the house.  Adieu!  Mrs. Jelf will be expecting you in the drawing-room.”

I was ushered to my room,—­not the blue room, of which Mr. Dwerrihouse had made disagreeable experience, but a pretty little bachelor’s chamber, hung with a delicate chintz, and made cheerful by a blazing fire.  I unlocked my portmanteau.  I tried to be expeditious; but the memory of my railway adventure haunted me.  I could not get free of it.  I could not shake it off.  It impeded me,—­it worried me,—­it tripped me up,—­it caused me to mislay my studs,—­to mistie my cravat,—­to wrench the buttons off my gloves.  Worst of all, it made me so late that the party had all assembled before I reached the drawing-room.  I had scarcely paid my respects to Mrs. Jelf when dinner was announced, and we paired off, some eight or ten couples strong, into the dining-room.

I am not going to describe either the guests or the dinner.  All provincial parties bear the strictest family resemblance, and I am not aware that an East Anglian banquet offers any exception to the rule.  There was the usual country baronet and his wife; there were the usual country parsons and their wives; there was the sempiternal turkey and haunch of venison. Vanitas vanitatum. There is nothing new under the sun.

I was placed about midway down the table.  I had taken one rector’s wife down to dinner, and I had another at my left hand.  They talked across me, and their talk was about babies.  It was dreadfully dull.  At length there came a pause.  The entrees had just been removed, and the turkey had come upon the scene.  The conversation had all along been of the languidest, but at this moment it happened to have stagnated altogether.  Jelf was carving the turkey.  Mrs. Jelf looked as if she was trying to think of something to say.  Everybody else was silent.  Moved by an unlucky impulse, I thought I would relate my adventure.