But Francis bit his finger.  He felt almost beside himself—­and quite powerless.  For he knew the guard of the train would jeer too.  It is not so easy to interfere with honest third-class Bolognesi in Bologna station, even if they have taken another man’s seat.  Powerless, his brow knitted, and looking just like Mephistopheles with his high forehead and slightly arched nose, Mephistopheles in a rage, he hauled down Aaron’s bag and handed it to Angus.  So they transferred themselves to the first-class carriage, while the fat man and his party in the third-class watched in jeering, triumphant silence.  Solid, planted, immovable, in static triumph.

So Aaron sat with the others amid the red plush, whilst the train began its long slow climb of the Apennines, stinking sulphurous through tunnels innumerable.  Wonderful the steep slopes, the great chestnut woods, and then the great distances glimpsed between the heights, Firenzuola away and beneath, Turneresque hills far off, built of heaven-bloom, not of earth.  It was cold at the summit-station, ice and snow in the air, fierce.  Our travellers shrank into the carriage again, and wrapped themselves round.

Then the train began its long slither downhill, still through a whole necklace of tunnels, which fortunately no longer stank.  So down and down, till the plain appears in sight once more, the Arno valley.  But then began the inevitable hitch that always happens in Italian travel.  The train began to hesitate—­to falter to a halt, whistling shrilly as if in protest:  whistling pip-pip-pip in expostulation as it stood forlorn among the fields:  then stealing forward again and stealthily making pace, gathering speed, till it had got up a regular spurt:  then suddenly the brakes came on with a jerk, more faltering to a halt, more whistling and pip-pip-pipping, as the engine stood jingling with impatience:  after which another creak and splash, and another choking off.  So on till they landed in Prato station:  and there they sat.  A fellow passenger told them, there was an hour to wait here:  an hour.  Something had happened up the line.

“Then I propose we make tea,” said Angus, beaming.

“Why not!  Of course.  Let us make tea.  And I will look for water.”

So Aaron and Francis went to the restaurant bar and filled the little pan at the tap.  Angus got down the red picnic case, of which he was so fond, and spread out the various arrangements on the floor of the coupe.  He soon had the spirit-lamp burning, the water heating.  Francis proposed that he and Aaron should dash into Prato and see what could be bought, whilst the tea was in preparation.  So off they went, leaving Angus like a busy old wizard manipulating his arrangements on the floor of the carriage, his monocle beaming with bliss.  The one fat fellow—­passenger with a lurid striped rug over his knees watched with acute interest.  Everybody who passed the doorway stood to contemplate the scene with pleasure.  Officials came and studied the situation with appreciation.  Then Francis and Aaron returned with a large supply of roast chestnuts, piping hot, and hard dried plums, and good dried figs, and rather stale rusks.  They found the water just boiling, Angus just throwing in the tea-egg, and the fellow-passenger just poking his nose right in, he was so thrilled.