On their drive to the station through austere streets, with bright glimpses of college quadrangles and young bloods in shooting-jackets and dancing-slippers, sauntering bareheaded, Waffles grew more exuberant and irrepressible; his ill-timed gaiety grated on her nerves. Having taken their seats in the carriage, the train was delayed in starting. He hung his head out of the window, jerking jocular remarks to her across his shoulder. She did not answer him, but sat with her hands folded in her lap and her eyes cast down. He could not make her out; up to now she had responded so readily to his merriment. At all costs he must make her laugh. The station-master was passing down the platform, his hands clasped beneath his flapping coat-tails. Not every station-master guards the gate-way to a seat of learning. This particular station-master felt the full importance of his position and carried himself with his stomach thrust forward and his head thrown back. Waffles leant from the window and beckoned frantically. When the official came up, he commenced to jabber in invented gibberish, desperately gesticulating with his hands. “Don't understand you,” the official said tartly; “don't talk no foreign langwidge.” Waffles paused in his torrent of palaver and winked solemnly at a group of undergraduates who stood watching. They happened to be pupils of the Professor. Then, as though an inspiration had burst upon him, he inquired, “Parlez-vous Français?” “Nong. I do not,” snapped the station-master, annoyed that his lack of scholarship should be exposed in this manner. He was moving away, when Waffles produced his crowning witticism, to which all the rest had been preface. Jehane would certainly laugh now. “Hi! Station-master! Does this train go to Oxford?” He had one glimpse of the insulted official's countenance, then he felt himself grabbed by the arm and drawn violently back into the carriage. “Do you want to make me ashamed of you already. Sit down and behave yourself.” “But darling--” “Oh, be quiet. Aren't you ever solemn? Is nothing sacred?” Exceedingly puzzled and utterly extinguished, he did as he was bade, waiting like a small boy expecting to be spanked. That was how they began life together. CHAPTER VII--THE WHISTLING ANGEL Peter can quite well remember the events which led up to that strange happening; not that the events or the happening seemed strange at the time--they grew into his life so naturally. He thought, if he thought at all, that to all little boys came the same experience; he would not have believed you had you told him otherwise.