"You got left behind?"

"Practically, yes. In point of fact, I was bunged out of the train by Spangle Jerningham."

"Why?"

"He bought some bananas, and I warned him not to. I said some people had been prosecuted only last week for eating fruit in a railway carriage."

"Silly young idiot!" I replied, falling into the trap, even as Jerningham had done.  "Why--"

"But they were," persisted The Freak.  "They were caught sucking dates--off their tickets! And as there was no train on for two hours," he concluded, neatly dodging "The Strand Magazine," "I decided to come round this way. We get to Liverpool Street by four. How far are you going?"

I told him, and the train resumed its journey through the fenland.

The next stop was Cambridge, where The Freak, suddenly remembering that the railway ticket in his possession was entirely useless for his present purpose, got out to buy another. I hung out of the carriage window, wondering which of the Colleges the tall yellow-brick building just outside the station might be, and gazing reverentially upon a group of three young men in tweed jackets and flannel trousers, who had temporarily torn themselves from the pursuit of knowledge for the purpose of bidding farewell to the members of a theatrical touring company.

Presently our engine and brake-van removed themselves to a place of refreshment down the line; whereupon a somnolent horse of mountainous aspect, which had been meekly standing by, attached by a trace to an empty third-class coach, took advantage of their absence to tow its burden to the front of our train and leave it there, like a foundling on a doorstep, subsequently departing in search of further practical jokes.

With that instinctive shrinking from publicity which marks the professions of literature, art, and the drama, each of the compartments of the third-class coach bore a label, printed in three colours, announcing that this accommodation was reserved for Mr. Wilton Spurge's Number One Company--I have always desired to meet a Number Two Company, but have never succeeded--in "The Sign of the Cross," proceeding from Cambridge to Liverpool Street, for Walthamstow.

The majority of Mr. Wilton Spurge's followers took their seats at 

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