More applause, during which Harrison dropped his bag of provisions, which were instantly seized and divided on the share and share alike system, among the gratified Austinians. 'Look here, none of your cheek,' was the shockingly feeble retort which alone occurred to him. The other said nothing. Harrison returned to the attack. 'Look here,' he said, 'are you going to get out, or have I got to make you?' Not a word did his opponent utter. To quote the bard: 'The stripling smiled.' To tell the truth, the stripling smiled inanely. The other occupants of the carriage were far from imitating his reserve. These treacherous friends, realizing that, for those who were themselves comfortably seated, the spectacle of Harrison standing up with aching limbs for a journey of some thirty miles would be both grateful and comforting, espoused the cause of the unknown with all the vigour of which they were capable. 'Beastly bully, Harrison,' said Barrett. 'Trying to turn the kid out of his seat! Why can't you leave the chap alone? Don't you move, kid.' 'Thanks,' said the unknown, 'I wasn't going to.' 'Now you see what comes of slacking,' said Grey. 'If you'd bucked up and got here in time you might have bagged this seat I've got. By Jove, Harrison, you've no idea how comfortable it is in this corner.' 'Punctuality,' said Babington, 'is the politeness of princes.' And again the unknown maddened Harrison with a 'best-on-record' grin. 'But, I say, you chaps,' said he, determined as a last resource to appeal to their better feelings (if any), 'Mace was keeping this seat for me, while I went to get some grub. Weren't you, Mace?' He turned to Mace for corroboration. To his surprise, Mace was nowhere to be seen. His sympathetic school-fellows grasped the full humour of the situation as one man, and gave tongue once more in chorus. 'You weed,' they yelled joyfully, 'you've got into the wrong carriage. Mace is next door.' And then, with the sound of unquenchable laughter ringing in his ears, Harrison gave the thing up, and relapsed into a disgusted silence. No single word did he speak until the journey was done, and the carriage emptied itself of its occupants at the Junction. The local train was in readiness to take them on to St Austin's, and this time Harrison managed to find a seat without much difficulty. But it was a bitter moment when Mace, meeting him on the platform, addressed him as a rotter, for that he had not come to claim the corner seat which he had been reserving for him. They had had, said Mace, a rattling good time coming down. What sort of a time had Harrison had in _his_ carriage? Harrison's reply was not remarkable for its clearness.