“Clumsy!” observed Albert tersely.

“Albert, you mustn’t speak to Aunty so!”

“Wodyer want to sit on my bag for then?” said Albert disagreeably.

They argued the point.  Argument in no wise interfered with Albert’s power of mastication.  The odour of aniseed became more and more painful.  Ukridge had lighted a cigar, and I understood why Mrs. Ukridge preferred to travel in another compartment, for

  “In his hand he bore the brand
   Which none but he might smoke.”

I looked across the carriage stealthily to see how the girl was enduring this combination of evils, and noticed that she had begun to read.  And as she put the book down to look out of the window, I saw with a thrill that trickled like warm water down my spine that her book was “The Manoeuvres of Arthur.”  I gasped.  That a girl should look as pretty as that and at the same time have the rare intelligence to read Me . . . well, it seemed an almost superhuman combination of the excellencies.  And more devoutly than ever I cursed in my heart these intrusive outsiders who had charged in at the last moment and destroyed for ever my chance of making this wonderful girl’s acquaintance.  But for them, we might have become intimate in the first half hour.  As it was, what were we?  Ships that pass in the night!  She would get out at some beastly wayside station, and vanish from my life without my ever having even spoken to her.

Aunty, meanwhile, having retired badly worsted from her encounter with Albert, who showed a skill in logomachy that marked him out as a future labour member, was consoling herself with meat sandwiches.  The niece was demolishing sausage rolls.  The atmosphere of the carriage was charged with a blend of odours, topping all Ukridge’s cigar, now in full blast.

The train raced on towards the sea.  It was a warm day, and a torpid peace began to settle down upon the carriage.  Ukridge had thrown away the stump of his cigar, and was now leaning back with his mouth open and his eyes shut.  Aunty, still clutching a much-bitten section of a beef sandwich, was breathing heavily and swaying from side to side.  Albert and the niece were dozing, Albert’s jaws working automatically, even in sleep.

“What’s your book, my dear?” asked the Irishman.

" ‘The Manoeuvres of Arthur,’ father.  By Jeremy Garnet.”

I would not have believed without the evidence of my ears that my name could possibly have sounded so musical.

“Molly McEachern gave it to me when I left the Abbey.  She keeps a shelf of books for her guests when they are going away.  Books that she considers rubbish, and doesn’t want, you know.”

I hated Miss McEachern without further evidence.

“And what do you think of it?”

“I like it,” said the girl decidedly.  The carriage swam before my eyes.  “I think it is very clever.”