Judging from what he looked like at the back, I should say that Mr. Dyer grinned. Obviously Jane and Ellen tittered: they put their heads together in charming confusion. The red-faced gentleman continued-- "One more than your share, haven't you, sir? You couldn't spare one of them for another gentleman? meaning me." "You might have Jane," replied the affable Mr. Dyer. "And which might happen to be Jane?" Mr. Dyer supplied the information. The red-faced gentleman raised his hat. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, miss; hope we shall be better friends before the day is over." My aunt, in the compartment behind, rose in her wrath. "Daniel Dyer! Jane! How dare you behave in such a manner!" The red-faced gentleman twisted himself round in his seat. "Beg pardon, miss--was you speaking to me? If you're alone, I dare say there's another gentleman present who'll be willing to oblige. Every young lady ought to have a gent to herself on a day like this. Do me the favour of putting this to your lips; you'll find it's the right stuff." Taking out a flat bottle, wiping it upon the sleeve of his coat, he offered it to my aunt. She succumbed. When I found myself a struggling unit in the struggling mass on the Crystal Palace platform, my aunt caught me by the arm. "Thomas, where have you brought us to?" "This is the Crystal Palace, aunt." "The Crystal Palace! It's pandemonium! Where are the members of our party?" That was the question. My aunt collared such of them as she could lay her hands on. Matthew Holman was missing. Personally, I was not sorry. He had been "putting his lips" to more than one friendly bottle in the compartment behind mine, and was on a fair way to having a "nice day" on lines of his own. I was quite willing that he should have it by himself. But my aunt was not. She was for going at once for the police and commissioning them to hunt for and produce him then and there. "I'm responsible for the man," she kept repeating. "I have his ticket." "Very well, aunt--that's all right. You'll find him, or he'll find you; don't you trouble." But she did trouble. She kept on troubling. And her cause for troubling grew more and more as the day went on. Before we were in the main building--it's a journey from the low level station through endless passages, and up countless stairs, placed at the most inconvenient intervals--Mrs. Penna was _hors de combat_. As no seat was handy she insisted on sitting down upon the floor. Passers-by made the most disagreeable comments, but she either could not or would not move. My aunt seemed half beside herself. She said to me most unfairly, "You ought not to have brought us here on a day like this. It is evident that there are some most dissipated creatures here. I have a horror of a crowd--and with all the members of our party on my hands--and such a crowd!" "How was I to know? I had not the faintest notion that anything particular was on till we were in the train."