Mine was the blunder then; I could have bitten my tongue off for uttering the name. A man behind turned towards us as if he had been struck by it--or I thought so. Had he known it, he was never so near having his head twisted off his shoulders. Had he allowed a sign of recognition to have escaped him, there would have been murder done. But he was a mild-looking, grey-haired person, and the sight of the expression with which I regarded him seemed to fill him with such astonishment, to say nothing else, that he retreated precipitately backwards, as if fearful that I was about to devour him then and there. I stumbled on. “I entreat your forgiveness, but I--I hadn’t the faintest notion you were hungry.” “No--you wouldn’t have.” “Meaning that I am the sort of person who never does know anything? You are right; I am. But where shall we go? I believe there’s some sort of place in the station where we can get something to eat.” “The nearest, please.” “But--I’m afraid that’s horrid.” “Don’t you know any place which isn’t horrid?” Scarcely ever before had my constitutional stupidity been so much to the front. The missing of the train, the discovery that I had actually proposed to take my companion to Ostend foodless, and in a state approaching to starvation, the fact that the paper-boys were repeating, under my very nose, their parrot cry, “Extraordinary scene at an inquest!”--these things, joined to the confusion around, seemed to addle my brain. For the moment I could not think where I could take her to get something decent to eat. Still doubtful, I was making for the station restaurant when some one caught me by the arm. It was Mr. Isaac Bernstein. He seemed to be half-beside himself with excitement; he grasped me with a vigour which was perhaps unconscious. “Have the goodness, Mr. Bernstein, to release my arm.” He burst into voluble speech. “This is more than I can stand, and I’m not going to have it. Don’t touch me, or I’ll call for help. There are policemen close by and I’m not without protection! Even a worm will turn, and now I’m going to; so just you listen to what I’ve got to say.” “Your affairs, Mr. Bernstein, have no interest for me. Did you hear me ask you to release my arm?” “It’s as much your affair as it is mine--every bit as much.” He waved his umbrella. “There’s Lawrence there.” “Who?” “Lawrence! He’s been trying to do a bolt--to Ostend or some infernal place or other, the other side of the world, for all I know--meaning to dish me as he’s done the rest of you. But I was on to him. He’d have been off in spite of me only he was drunk, or mad, or something, and they wouldn’t have him in the train. Now he’s behaving like a howling lunatic.” Releasing my arm, Mr. Bernstein took off his hat to wipe his brow. “I believe he’s raving mad. That’s him! Did you ever hear anything like the row he’s making?”