platform to see if it had fallen there?

I did oblige him in this manner, without avail; but by this time he had
found the missing treasure in the folds of his travelling rug; and
scrambling out of the carriage, attended by the porter I had secured for
him, he would have walked by my side towards the boat, had I not dropped
behind a few steps, thinking--as always--of the contents of that inner
breast pocket.

He and I were now at the tail-end of the procession hastening boatward,
or almost at the tail, for there were but four or five other
passengers--a family party with a fat nurse and crying baby--behind us.
As I approached the gangway, I saw on deck my late travelling
companions, the Jewish man and his friend, regarding us with interest.
Then, just as I was about to step on board, almost on the little man's
heels, there came a cry apparently from someone ahead: "Look
out--gangway's falling!"

In an instant all was confusion. The fat nurse behind me screamed, as
the nervous fellow in front leaped like a cat, intent on saving himself
no matter what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman
with the baby. Two or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also
attempted to turn, thus nearly throwing the little man onto his knees.
The large bag which he carried hit me across the shins; in his terror he
almost embraced me as he helped himself up: the nurse, as she stumbled,
pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not seized the howling
baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet.

My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat
cried the reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm--that the