time. Bowls me right over. I go aboard, stoked to the eyebrows with seasick remedies, swearing that this time I’ll fool ’em, but down I go ten minutes after we’ve started and the next thing I know is somebody saying, ‘Well, well! So this is Dover!’” 

 “It’s exactly the same with me,” said Freddie, delighted with the smooth, easy way the conversation was flowing. “Whether it’s the hot, greasy smell of the engines …” 

 “It’s not the engines,” contended Ronny Devereux. 

 “Stands to reason it can’t be. I rather like the smell of engines. This station is reeking with the smell of engine-grease, and I can drink it in and enjoy it.” He sniffed luxuriantly. “It’s something else.” 

 “Ronny’s right,” said Algy cordially. “It isn’t the engines. It’s the way the boat heaves up and down and up and down and up and down …” He shifted his cigar to his left hand in order to give with his right a spirited illustration of a Channel steamer going up and down and up and down and up and down. Lady Underhill, who had opened her eyes, had an excellent view of the performance, and closed her eyes again quickly. 

 “Be quiet!” she snapped. 

 “I was only saying …” 

 “Be quiet!” 

 “Oh, rather!” 

 Lady Underhill wrestled with herself. She was a woman of great will-power and accustomed to triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh. After awhile her eyes opened. She had forced herself, against the evidence of her senses, to recognize that this was a platform on which she stood and not a deck. 

 There was a pause. Algy, damped, was temporarily out of action, and his friends had for the moment nothing to remark. 

 “I’m afraid you had a trying journey, mother,” said Derek. “The train was very late.” 

 “Now, train-sickness,” said Algy, coming to the surface again, “is a thing lots of people suffer from. Never could understand it myself.” 

 “I’ve never had a touch of train-sickness,” said Ronny. 

 “Oh, I have,” said Freddie. “I’ve often felt rotten on a train. I get floating spots in front of my eyes and a sort of heaving sensation, and everything kind of goes black …” 

 “Mr Rooke!” 

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