ink, myself, they're in a bad state: that's my opinion. There ain't
a man among 'em who knows how to keep down those people: that's my
opinion, sir. What do you think?"

"Oh, I think so too," said Lavender. "You'll find a good article in that
paper on University Tests."

The cheery person looked rather blank. "I would like to hear your
opinion about 'em, sir," he said. "It ain't much good reading only one
side of a question, but when you can talk about it and discuss it,
now--"

"I am sorry I can't oblige you," said Lavender, goaded into making some
desperate effort to release himself. "I am suffering from relaxed throat
at present. My doctor has warned me against talking too much."

"I beg your pardon, sir. You don't seem very well: perhaps the throat
comes with a little feverishness, you see--a cold, in fact. Now if I was
you I'd try tannin lozenges for the throat. They're uncommon good for
the throat; and a little quinine for the general system--that would put
you as right as a fiver. I tried it myself when I was down in 'Ampshire
last year. And you wouldn't find a drop of this brandy a bad thing,
either, if you don't mind rowing in the same boat as myself."

Lavender declined the proffered flask and subsided behind a newspaper.
His fellow-traveler lit another cheroot, took up Bradshaw and settled
himself in a corner.

Had Sheila come up this very line some dozen hours before? Lavender
asked himself as he looked out on the hills and valleys and woods of
Buckinghamshire. Had the throbbing of the engine and the rattle of the
wheels kept the piteous eyes awake all through the dark night, until the
pale dawn showed the girl a wild vision of northern hills and moors,
telling her she was getting near to her own country? Not thus had Sheila
proposed to herself to return home on the first holiday-time that should
occur to them both. He began to think of his present journey as it might
have been in other circumstances. Would she have remembered any of those
pretty villages which she saw one early morning long ago when they were
bathed in sunshine and scarcely awake to the new day? Would she be
impatient at the delays at the stations, and anxious to hurry on to
Westmoreland and Dumfries, to Glasgow, and Oban, and Skye, and then from
Stornoway across the island to the little inn at Garra-na-hina? Here, as
he looked out of the window, the first indication of the wilder country
became visible in the distant Berkshire hills.