‘My begs ’oor pardon,’ said Tally Ho, pained but polite, raising his hat and rubbing his snub nose. The commercial, with soul intent on the undercut, paid no attention, but hurried on. ‘Oos a lude man,’ said Tally Ho, indignantly; ‘a velly lude man.’ He stared reproachfully after him up the street till the stream had swallowed him up. In time, and by dint of much circuitous marching and counter-marching, escaping with many a dodge and device the rumbling onslaught of ’busses, and the ‘scorching’ attack of bicycles, they reached the black hole known to the Westerns as Charing Cross Station. The interview between Kotah Lal and the ticket clerk ended satisfactorily in his obtaining tickets for not more than two stations further than their destination. Armed with these, the Hindu secured Tally Ho by the arm, and descended gravely to the platform. ‘Dlefful ’tuffy,’ commented Tally Ho, with a sniff of disgust; ‘my wantee tum scent on my’s hankeychoo.’ ‘Let the Sahib abide but a moment in patience--here cometh the panting one with the fiery eye.’ A train drew up, they got into an empty carriage, and, as Tally Ho remarked, ‘de Injun blewed its nose,’ and ‘shaking its head,’ went on its way towards the west. Now it is not to be peculiarly remembered against Kotah Lal that upon this stifling afternoon he was inclined to doze, bearing in mind that for two nights, being cumbered with the duties of arrival, he had not slept,--moreover, the fact that within two minutes of entering the train he fell into a deep and dreamless slumber, he himself has since been heard to explain as a particular and malicious visitation of the Evil One. Before Westminster Bridge was reached Tally Ho had exhausted the fascinations of the carriage, and was become unfeignedly bored. ‘My will wait till de tlain ’tops,’ he thought, ‘and ask Kotah Lal if my may det down and ’peak to Blown.’ Brown, a particular friend of his, was an engine-driver on the little one-horse line that ran past his home in the North-West Provinces. The train pulled up with a jerk at the station, and Tally Ho turned to proffer his request, but a gently ecstatic snore from the turbaned head in the opposite corner warned him that his protector was far away in the Land of Nod. ‘Poo’ah Kotah Lal,’ said Tally Ho compassionately, ‘he’s velly sleepy, my will not wakle him up.’ This he said consideringly, having in his small mind the semi-conviction that it might be better _not_ to ask for his protector’s leave in this matter. ‘My tinks,’ pursued Tally Ho, ‘Blown will be wanting my.’ He moved towards the door, but at this moment the train resumed its grimy way, and burrowed once more into the bowels of the city. Tally Ho paused, his small fist on the handle. ‘My will wait,’ he said, ‘till de silly tlain ’tops again.’