her last hurried injunctions and her firm belief in something flannel.
'I say,' shouted Bob over the heads of I don't know how many people, 'have you got the filter?'
'Goodness gracious!' said Aunt Agatha excitedly; 'if you've forgotten that you must'—she looked round vaguely, as if for inspiration, then, brightening up—'drink nothing but tea.'
'Yes,' I said gravely, 'I'll always drink tea when there's no water to be got.'
But Aunt Agatha was too far gone for gentle sarcasm. I knew she was racking her brains to think of some other last injunction, and that she might break out any moment. I trembled to think to what details her mind might not descend in the final throes of parting.
I turned round hastily to escape her, and there was Lord Hendley again confronting me. Now I had said all that I had to say to Lord Hendley on a public railway platform, and I felt that if the train didn't move off soon I should end by saying something fatuous. Was there ever anything more trying than seeing people off or being seen off one's self at a railway-station? I don't know which is the lesser evil. You've already said all you've got to say long before you get there, but, still, you've got to make idiotic remarks to fill up the time, knowing that at any moment you may be cut short in the middle of a sentence by the train moving off. You are absolutely at the mercy of that wretched train, which seems to mock you by its very uncertainty, like a puzzle to which the guard and the
