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 he weightily affirmed, under the stimulus no doubt of being addressed as a gentleman, in the Company's time, by such a good-looking girl, "that as this lady has got the parcel, and we have got the ticket for it, she and Uncle had better fight it out between 'em."

"I don't know about that," growled Nobby.

Green Corduroy, however, stimulated by the fiery anguish of June's glance, and no doubt still in thrall to the fact that she considered him a gentleman, was not to be moved from the statesmanlike attitude he had taken up. "You let 'em fight it out, Nobby. This lady was the one as brought it here."

"I gave you a ten shilling note, didn't I?" The voice of June was as honeyed as the state of her feelings would permit.

"Yes, and I fetched the change for you, didn't I?"

Crusty Sides shook a head of confirmed misogyny. "Very irregular, that's all I've got to say about it."

"Maybe it is, Nobby. But it's nothing to do with you and me."

Green Corduroy, with almost the air of a knight errant, took the all-important slip of paper from his colleague. Flaunting it in gallant fingers, he moved up slowly to the counter.

S. Gedge Antiques, buying spectacles on nose, knotted cudgel in hand, was impatiently waiting. "The parcel is claimed by the lady who brought it," June heard Green Corduroy announce.

She waited for no more. Following close behind Crusty Sides, who also moved up to the counter, she slipped quietly through an adjacent door to the main line platform before Uncle Si grew fully alive to the situation.