As I was dog-tired, and in no condition to answer questions with discretion, I thought I would not disturb the Expedition at that time of night, as there was a vacant room I knew of at the other end of the hall; but I did not quite arrive there, as a watch had been set, the Expedition being anxious about me. I was placed in a galling situation. The Expedition sat stiff and forbidding, on four chairs in a row, with shawls and things all on, satchels and guide-books in lap. They had been sitting like that for four hours, and the glass going down all the time. Yes, and they were waiting—waiting for me. It seemed to me that nothing but a sudden, happily contrived, and brilliant _tour de force_ could break this iron front and make a diversion in my favour; so I shied my hat into the arena, and followed it with a skip and a jump, shouting blithely: ‘Ha, ha, here we all are, Mr. Merryman!’ Nothing could be deeper or stiller than the absence of applause which followed. But I kept on; there seemed no other way, though my confidence, poor enough before, had got a deadly check, and was in effect gone. I tried to be jocund out of a heavy heart; I tried to touch the other hearts there and soften the bitter resentment in those faces by throwing off bright and airy fun, and making of the whole ghastly thing a joyously humorous incident; but this idea was not well conceived. It was not the right atmosphere for it. I got not one smile; not one line in those offended faces relaxed; I thawed nothing of the winter that looked out of those frosty eyes. I started one more breezy, poor effort, but the head of the Expedition cut into the centre of it, and said: ‘Where have you been?’ I saw by the manner of this that the idea was to get down to cold business now. So I began my travels, but was cut short again. ‘Where are the two others? We have been in frightful anxiety about them.’ ‘Oh, they’re all right. I was to fetch a cab. I will go straight off, and——’ ‘Sit down! Don’t you know it is 11 o’clock? Where did you leave them?’ ‘At the pension.’ ‘Why didn’t you bring them?’ ‘Because we couldn’t carry the satchels. And so I thought——’ ‘Thought! You should not try to think. One cannot think without the proper machinery. It is two miles to that pension. Did you go there without a cab?’ ‘I—well, I didn’t intend to; it only happened so.’ ‘How did it happen so?’ ‘Because I was at the Post Office, and I remembered that I had left a cab waiting here, and so, to stop the expense, I sent another cab to—to——’ ‘To what?’ ‘Well, I don’t remember now, but I think the new cab was to have the hotel pay the old cab, and send it away.’ ‘What good would that do?’ ‘What good would it do? It would stop the expense, wouldn’t it?’ ‘By putting the new cab in its place to continue the expense?’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Why didn’t you have the new cab come back for you?’ ‘Oh, that is what I did! I remember now. Yes, that is what I did. Because I recollect that when I——’