I saw the woman for an instant as she was brought out of the train and
carried to the bench. She did not recognise the man she had married
fifty years before: but as we moved out of the station, he was sitting
beside her, his face transfigured with a solemn joy.
SCHOOL FRIENDS.
"What ho, there!"
At this feudal summons I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way
towards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and
his big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my neck, and we
embraced.
"Is me recreant child returned? Is he tired at last av annihilatin'
all that's made to a green thought in a green shade? An' did he
homesickun by the Cornish Coast for the Street that Niver Sleeps,
an' the whirroo an' stink av her, an' the _foomum et opase
strepitumke_--to drink delight av battle with his peers, an' see the
great Achilles whom he knew--meanin' meself?" The Bashaw's style in
conversation, as in print, bristles with allusion.
I shook my head.
"I go back to-morrow, I hope. Business brought me up, and as soon as
it's settled I pack.
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