"/Albert/, you mustn't speak to Aunty so!"

"Wodyer want to sit on my bag for then?" said Albert disagreeably.

They argued the point. Argument in no wise interfered with Albert's
power of mastication. The odour of aniseed became more and more
painful. Ukridge had lighted a cigar, and I understood why Mrs.
Ukridge preferred to travel in another compartment, for

"In his hand he bore the brand
Which none but he might smoke."

I looked across the carriage stealthily to see how the girl was
enduring this combination of evils, and noticed that she had begun to
read. And as she put the book down to look out of the window, I saw
with a thrill that trickled like warm water down my spine that her
book was "The Manoeuvres of Arthur." I gasped. That a girl should look
as pretty as that and at the same time have the rare intelligence to
read Me . . . well, it seemed an almost superhuman combination of the
excellencies. And more devoutly than ever I cursed in my heart these
intrusive outsiders who had charged in at the last moment and
destroyed for ever my chance of making this wonderful girl's
acquaintance. But for them, we might have become intimate in the first
half hour. As it was, what were we? Ships that pass in the night! She
would get out at some beastly wayside station, and vanish from my life
without my ever having even spoken to her.

Aunty, meanwhile, having retired badly worsted from her encounter with
Albert, who showed a skill in logomachy that marked him out as a