Fareham they stopped for a second tea, and left the place towards
the hour of sunset, under such invigorating circumstances as you
shall in due course hear.



THE RESCUE EXPEDITION

XXX

And now to tell of those energetic chevaliers, Widgery, Dangle,
and Phipps, and of that distressed beauty, 'Thomas Plantagenet,'
well known in society, so the paragraphs said, as Mrs. Milton. We
left them at Midhurst station, if I remember rightly, waiting, in
a state of fine emotion, for the Chichester train. It was clearly
understood by the entire Rescue Party that Mrs. Milton was
bearing up bravely against almost overwhelming grief. The three
gentlemen outdid one another in sympathetic expedients; they
watched her gravely almost tenderly. The substantial Widgery
tugged at his moustache, and looked his unspeakable feelings at
her with those dog-like, brown eyes of his; the slender Dangle
tugged at HIS moustache, and did what he could with unsympathetic
grey ones. Phipps, unhappily, had no moustache to run any risks
with, so he folded his arms and talked in a brave, indifferent,
bearing-up tone about the London, Brighton, and South Coast
Railway, just to cheer the poor woman up a little. And even Mrs.
Milton really felt that exalted melancholy to the very bottom of
her heart, and tried to show it in a dozen little, delicate,
feminine ways.