The feast ended in traditional fashion. No bill was ever asked for or presented upon these occasions. Rumbold major merely took the sugar-basin and, having emptied it of its contents, placed therein the sum of two-and-nine-pence--half-a-crown for his breakfast and threepence for the waiters. The bowl was then sent round the table in the manner of an offertory plate, and the resulting collection was handed without ceremony to the fat head-waiter, who received it with a stately bow and a few well-chosen and long-familiar phrases upon the subject of a good holiday and a Merry Christmas; after which the members of the party dispersed to the railway station and went their several ways.

It was characteristic of The Freak that he hung behind at the last moment, for the purpose of handing a furtive shilling to the inarticulate Teuton who had assisted in dispensing breakfast, and whose underfed appearance had roused beneath the comfortably distended waistcoat of our altruistic friend certain suspicions, not altogether unfounded, as to the principle upon which head-waiters share tips with their subordinates.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST FREAK

My name is Carmyle. Possibly you may have noticed it in the previous chapter, among the list of those present at the breakfast at the Imperial. It was not a particularly hilarious meal for me, for I was leaving Grandwich for good that morning; and the schoolboy bids farewell to this, the first chapter of his life, with a ceremony--not to say solemnity--sadly at variance with the cheerfulness or indifference with which he sometimes turns the page at the close of later epochs.

I parted from the main body of Hivites at Peterborough, for they were bound for London, while I had to transfer my person and effects to the care of the Great Eastern Railway for conveyance to my home in Essex.

At Ely, a little tired of the company and conversation of five East Anglian farmers, who occupied more than their fair share of room and conducted an extremely dull technical conversation with quite surprising heat and vehemence over my head and across my waistcoat, I walked up the platform in search of a little more cubic space. At the very front of the train I found a third-class compartment containing only a single occupant.

"Hallo, Freak!" I said.  "I thought you were bound for London."

"Your surmise," replied my late fag, "is correct. But there was a slight mishap at Peterborough."

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