Happy-go-lucky. Ian Hay
The Freak had installed his admirer in the corner-seat beside him, and, having found paper and pencil, was engaged in turning out masterpieces of art at her behest. With a flat suitcase for a desk, he was executing--so far as the Great Eastern Railway would permit him--a portrait of Miss Welwyn herself; his model, pleasantly thrilled, affectionately clasping one of his arms in both of hers and breathing heavily through her small nose, which she held about six inches from the paper.
Finally the likeness was completed and presented.
"Now draw a cow," said Miss Welwyn immediately.
The Freak meekly set to work again.
Then came the inevitable question.
"What's her name?"
The artist considered.
"Sylvia," he said at length. Sylvia, I knew, was the name of his sister.
"Not like that name!" said the child, more prophetically than she knew.
The Freak apologised and suggested Mary Ann, which so pleased his patroness that she immediately lodged an order for twelve more cows. The artist executed the commission with unflagging zeal and care, Miss Welwyn following every stroke of the pencil with critical interest and numbering off the animals as they were created.
About this time Master Percy Welwyn, who had fallen into a fitful slumber, woke up and loudly expressed a desire for a commodity which he described as "kike." His mother supplied his needs from a string-bag. Refreshed and appeased, he slept anew.
Meanwhile the herd of cows had been completed, and The Freak was, immediately set to work to find names for each. The appellation Mary Ann had established a fatal precedent, for The Freak's employer ruthlessly demanded a double title for each of Mary Ann's successors. Appealed to for a personal contribution, she shook her small head firmly: to her, evidently, in common with the rest of her sex, destructive criticism of male endeavour was woman's true sphere in life. But when the despairing Freak, after submitting Mabel-Maud, Emily-Kate, Elizabeth-Jane, and Maria-Theresa, made a second pathetic appeal for assistance, the lady so far relented as to suggest "Seener Angler"--a form of address which, though neither bovine nor feminine, seemed to me to come naturally enough from the daughter of a Don, but caused Mr. and Mrs. Welwyn to exchange glances.
At last the tale was completed,--I think the last cow was christened "Bishop's Stortford," through which station we were passing at the moment,--and the exhausted Freak smilingly laid down his pencil. But no one who has ever embarked upon that most comprehensive and interminable of enterprises, the entertainment of a child, will be surprised to hear that Miss Welwyn now laid a pudgy fore-finger upon the first cow, and enquired:--
"Where that cow going?"
"Cambridge," answered The Freak after consideration.
"Next one?"
"London."
"Next one?"
Freak thought again.
"Grandwich," he said.
The round face puckered.
"Not like it. Anuvver place!"
"You think of one," said The Freak boldly.
The small despot promptly named a locality which sounded like "Tumpiton," and passed on pitilessly to the next cow.
"Where that one going?" she enquired.
"It is n't going: it's coming back," replied The Freak, rather ingeniously.
Strange to say, this answer appeared to satisfy the hitherto insatiable infant, and the game was abruptly abandoned. Picking up The Freak's pencil, Miss Welwyn projected a seraphic smile upon its owner.
"You give this to Tilly?" she enquired, in a voice which most men know.
"Rather."
"Tilly, ducky, don't act so greedy," came the inevitable maternal correction. "Give back the young gentleman--"
"It's all right," said The Freak awkwardly. "I don't want it, really."
"But--"
There came a shriek from the engine, and the train slowed down.
"Is this where they collect tickets, father?" enquired Mrs. Welwyn, breaking off suddenly.
Mr. Welwyn nodded, and his wife rather hurriedly plucked her daughter from her seat beside The Freak and transferred her to her own lap, to that damsel's unfeigned dolour.
"Sit on mother's knee just now, dearie," urged Mrs. Welwyn--"just for a minute or two!"
Miss Welwyn, who appeared to be a biddable infant, settled down without further objection. A moment later the train stopped and the carriage door was thrown open.
"Tickets, please!"
Mr. Welwyn and I sat next the door, and I accordingly submitted my ticket for inspection. It was approved and returned to me by the collector, an austere person with what Charles Surface once described as "a damned disinheriting countenance."
"Change next stop," he remarked. "Yours, sir?"
Mr. Welwyn handed him three tickets. The collector appeared to count them. Then his gloomy gaze fell upon the unconscious Miss Welwyn, who from the safe harbourage of her mother's arms was endeavouring to administer to him what is technically known, I believe, as The Glad Eye.
"Have you a ticket for that child, madam?" he enquired. "Too old to be carried."
Mrs. Welwyn looked helplessly at her husband, who replied for her.
"Yes, surely. Did n't I give it to you, my man?"
"No, sir," said the collector dryly; "you did not."
Mr. Welwyn began to feel in his pockets.
"That is uncommonly stupid of me," he said. "I must have it somewhere. I thought I put them all in one pocket."
He pursued his researches further, and the collector waited grimly. I looked at Mrs. Welwyn. She was an honest woman, and a fleeting glance at her face informed me that the search for this particular ticket was to be of a purely academic description.
"I must trouble you," began the man, "for--"
"It must be somewhere!" persisted Mr. Welwyn, with unruffled cheerfulness. "Perhaps I dropped it on the floor."
"Let me look!"
Next moment The Freak, who had been a silent spectator of the scene, dropped upon his knees and dived under the seat. The collector, obviously sceptical, fidgeted impatiently and stepped back on to the platform, as if to look for an inspector. I saw an appealing glance pass from Mrs. Welwyn to her husband. He smiled back airily, and I realised that probably this comedy had been played once or twice before.
The collector reappeared.
"The fare," he began briskly, "is--"
"Here's the ticket," announced a muffled voice from beneath the seat, and The Freak, crimson and dusty, emerged from the depths flourishing a green pasteboard slip.
The collector took it from his hand and examined it carefully.
"All right," he snapped. "Now your own, sir."
The Freak dutifully complied. At the sight of his ticket the collector's morose countenance lightened almost to the point of geniality. He was not to go empty away after all.
"Great Northern ticket. Not available on this line," he announced.
"It's all right, old man," explained my fag affably. "I changed from the Great Northern at Peterborough. This line of yours is so much jollier," he added soothingly.
"Six-and-fourpence," said the collector.
The Freak, who was well endowed with pocket-money even at the end of term, complied with the utmost cheerfulness; asked for a receipt; expressed an earnest hope that the collector's real state of health belied his appearance; and resumed his corner-seat