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donnés là-haut, avant d’aller chercher les journaux.’
        ‘Je t’assure que non. Enfin, c’est évident! J’ai cherché partout, que diable! Tu ne m’as rien donné, du tout, du tout.’
        ‘Mais, puisque je t’ai dit d’aller faire enrégistrer les bagages! Ne faut-il pas que je t’aie bien remis les billets? Me prends-tu pour un imbécile? Va! On n’est pas dépourvu de sens! Mais regarde l’heure! Le train part à 11 h. 20 m. Cherche un peu, au moins.’
        ‘Mais puisque j’ai cherché partout – le gilet, rien! Le jacquet rien, rien! Le pardessus – rien! rien! rien! C’est toi—’
        Here the porter, urged by the frantic cries and stamping of the queue, and the repeated insults of Lord Peter’s porter, flung himself into the discussion.
        ‘P’t-être qu’ m’sieur a bouté les billets dans son pantalon,’ he suggested.
        ‘Triple idiot!’ snapped the traveller, ‘je vous le demande – est-ce qu’on a jamais entendu parler de mettre des billets dans son pantalon? Jamais—’
        The French porter is a Republican, and, moreover, extremely ill-paid. The large tolerance of his English colleague is not for him.
        ‘Ah!’ said he, dropping two heavy bags and looking round for moral support. ‘Vous dîtes? En voilà du joli! Allons, mon p’tit, ce n’est pas parce qu’on porte un faux col qu’on a le droit d’insulter les gens.’
        The discussion might have become a full-blown row, had not the young man discovered the missing tickets – incidentally, they were in his trousers-pocket after all – and continued the registration of his luggage, to the undisguised satisfaction of the crowd.
        ‘Bunter,’ said his lordship, who had turned his back on the group and was lighting a cigarette, ‘I am going to change the tickets. We shall go straight on to London. Have you got that snapshot affair of yours with you?’
        ‘Yes, my lord.’
        ‘The one you can work from your pocket without anyone noticing?’
        ‘Yes, my lord.’
        ‘Get me a picture of those two.’
        ‘Yes, my lord.’
        ‘I will see to the luggage. Wire to the Duc that I am unexpectedly called home.’
        ‘Very good my lord.’
        Lord Peter did not allude to the matter again till Bunter was putting his trousers in the press in their cabin on board the Normannia. Beyond ascertaining that the young man and woman who had aroused his curiosity were on the boat as second-class passengers, he had sedulously avoided contact with them.
        ‘Did you get that photograph?’
        ‘I hope so, my lord. As your lordship knows, the aim from the breast-pocket tends to be unreliable. I have made three attempts, and trust that one at least may prove to be not unsuccessful.’
        ‘How soon can you develop them?’
        ‘At once, if your lordship pleases. I have all the materials in my suit case.’
        ‘What fun!’ said Lord Peter, eagerly tying himself into a pair of mauve silk pyjamas. ‘May I hold the bottles and things?’
        Mr Bunter poured 3 ounces of water into an 8-ounce measure, and handed his master a glass rod and a minute packet.
        ‘If your lordship would be so good as to stir the contents of the white packet slowly into the water,’ he said, bolting the door, ‘and, when dissolved, add the contents of the blue packet.’
        ‘Just like a Seidlitz powder,’ said his lordship happily. ‘Does it fizz?’
        ‘Not much, my lord,’ replied the expert, shaking a quantity of hypo crystals into the hand-basin.
        ‘That’s a pity,’ said Lord Peter. ‘I say, Bunter, it’s no end of a bore to dissolve.’
        ‘Yes, my lord,’ returned Bunter sedately. ‘I have always found that part of the process exceptionally tedious, my lord.’
        Lord Peter jabbed viciously with the glass rod.
        ‘Just you wait,’ he said, in a vindictive tone, ‘till we get to