The Grand Magazine 1929/10. [antikvár]

The Little By Marouis E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM THE quaint invasion of his otherwise empty carriage at one of the small stations between Cromer and Melton Constable, at first a mildly annoying episode, became to Jasper Slane a few minutes later a matter for benign and tolerant curiosity. It was evident that his prospective fellow-passengers were people of local consequence. First of all, a porter opened the door and, glancing round, surreptitiously dusted one of the seats. Then a chauffeur in black livery dedeposited two dressing-cases and a kitbag upon one of the vacant places. As soon as he stood away, the stationmaster appeared, hat in hand. Following him, a solemn, pale-faced, cleanshaven functionary in black cut-away coat, grey trousers and black bow tie, stepped into the carriage, and, turning round, extended his hand to the very diminutive person lingering in the background. " If you will permit me, my lord," he murmured, in a deep, sonorous voice. His lordship, helped by the stationmaster from behind and this obvious man-servant in front, stepped into the carriage without any manifest need of such assistance. He was very small indeed-scarcely more than five feet high, with the sort of skin which looks as though hair had never grown upon it, a sensitive mouth, and the eyes of a child. He was dressed in an old-fashioned tweed suit of pepper-and-salt design, with broad-toed shoes, a four-in-hand tie of black satin of such dimensions that it seemed almost like a stock, and his hat was a flat-topped bowler of a fashion long since discarded. He wore heavy dogskin gloves, and he might very well have stepped out of one of Punch's cartoons of between 1850 and 1860. He sank into his corner seat, and turnéd towards the stationmaster. Jasper Slane almost started at the sound of his voice-unnaturally highpitched, the thin treble of a child. " Thank you very much, Mr. Stationmaster," he said. " We shall be very comfortable, I am sure. My trunk is safely in the van? . . . Good! . . . Mason," he added, turning to his com-