'Crying, what nonsense, Frank; your mother was waving good-bye and good riddance to you with that foolish scrap of lace of hers; that's all. Crying, indeed!' and the old seaman snorted indignantly at the idea. It was all very well for the Admiral to deny the fact, and to go very near to getting angry about it, but Snap at any rate knew that it was a fact, and that Admiral Chris knew it too. It was the first untruth he had ever heard from the upright old gentleman by his side, and Snap's wonder and dislike to this journey grew. As Snap looked back a turn in the road gave him another rain-blurred glimpse of Fairbury, with a little drooping figure which still watched from the Hall steps, and a conviction that something was wrong somewhere forced itself insensibly upon him, though as yet he was not wise enough to guess where the evil threatened. The rain had an angry sound in it, unlike the merry splash of heavy summer showers: there seemed a sorrow in the sigh of the wind, unlike the scent-laden sigh of summer breezes after rain. Nature looked ugly and unhappy, and the boys were soon glad to curl themselves up in their respective corners of the railway carriage, with their backs resolutely turned upon the rain-blurred panes of the carriage window. At the station the Admiral had met his favourite aversion, Mr. Crombie. What Mr. Crombie had originally done to offend the Admiral no one knew, but he had done it effectually. Crombie gave Admiral Chris the gout even worse than '47 port or the east wind. Crombie was on the point of addressing Frank when the Admiral intervened and carried off the boys to get tickets. A little to Frank's surprise, his uncle took third-class tickets, for, although on long journeys the old gentleman invariably practised this wise economy, Frank had been accustomed to hear him say, 'Always take "firsts" on our own line, to support a local institution.' As the Admiral took his tickets the voice of his persecutor sounded behind him. Crombie had followed his foe. 'What!' he said--and the sneering tone was so marked that it made the boys wince--'an Admiral travelling third!' 'Yes, Sir,' retorted the Admiral fiercely. 'God bless me, you don't mean to say there is a "fourth" on? Only persons who are afraid of being mistaken for their butlers travel first nowadays,' and with an indignant snort the old gentleman squared his shoulders, poked out his chin, and walked down the platform with a regular quarter-deck roll, leaving Mr. Crombie to meditate on what he was pleased to call 'the "side" of them beggarly aristocrats.'