the large man. He sat as if he had insolently taken
root in his seat. Aaron flushed slightly. Francis and Angus strolled
along the train, outside, for the corridor was already blocked with the
mad Bologna rush, and the baggage belonging. They joined Aaron as he
stood on the platform.

"But where is YOUR SEAT?" cried Francis, peering into the packed and
jammed compartments of the third class.

"That man's sitting in it."

"Which?" cried Francis, indignant.

"The fat one there--with the collar on his knee."

"But it was your seat--!"

Francis' gorge rose in indignation. He mounted into the corridor. And in
the doorway of the compartment he bridled like an angry horse rearing,
bridling his head. Poising himself on one hip, he stared fixedly at the
man with the collar on his knee, then at the baggage aloft. He looked
down at the fat man as a bird looks down from the eaves of a house. But
the man looked back with a solid, rock-like impudence, before which an
Englishman quails: a jeering, immovable insolence, with a sneer round
the nose and a solid-seated posterior.

"But," said Francis in English--none of them had any Italian yet. "But,"
said Francis, turning round to Aaron, "that was YOUR SEAT?" and he flung
his long fore-finger in the direction of the fat man's thighs.

"Yes!" said Aaron.

"And he's TAKEN it--!" cried Francis in indignation.

"And knows it, too," said Aaron.

"But--!" and Francis looked round imperiously, as if to summon his
bodyguard. But bodyguards are no longer forthcoming, and train-guards
are far from satisfactory. The fat man sat on, with a sneer-grin,
very faint but very effective, round his nose, and a solidly-planted
posterior. He quite enjoyed the pantomime of the young foreigners. The
other passengers said something to him, and he answered laconic. Then
they all had the faint sneer-grin round their noses. A woman in the
corner grinned jeeringly straight in Francis' face. His charm failed
entirely this time: and as for his commandingness, that was ineffectual
indeed. Rage came up in him.

"Oh well--something must be done," said he decisively. "But didn't you
put something in the seat to RESERVE it?"

"Only that _New Statesman_--but he's moved it."

The man still sat with the invisible sneer-grin on his face, and that
peculiar and immovable plant of his Italian posterior.

"Mais--cette place etait RESERVEE--" said Francis, moving to the direct
attack.

The man turned aside and