His eyes, as they opened dreamily, fell on a face half obscured in the gleaming; he leaned forward, bewildered and doubting his senses.
"Rake!" Rake gave the salute hurriedly and in embarrassment.
"It's I, sir!--yes, sir." Cecil thought himself dreaming still.
"You! You had my orders ?" "Yes, sir, I had your orders," murmured the ex-soldier, more confused than he had ever been in the whole course of his audacious life, "and they was the first I ever disobeyed--they was.

You see, sir, they was just what I couldn't swallow nohow--that's the real, right-down fact! Send me to the devil, Mr.Cecil, for you, and I'll go at the first bidding, but leave you just when things are on the cross for you, damn me if I will!--beggin' your pardon, sir!" And Rake, growing fiery and eloquent, dashed his cap down on the floor of the coupe with an emphatic declaration of resistance.

Cecil looked at him in silence; he was not certain still whether this were not a fantastic folly he was dreaming.
"Damn me if I will, Mr.Cecil! You won't keep me--very well; but you can't prevent me follerin' of you, and foller you I will; and so there's no more to be said about it, sir; but just to let me have my own lark, as one may say.

You said you'd go to the station, I went there; you took your ticket, I took my ticket.

I've been travelling behind you till about two hours ago, then I looked at you; you was asleep sir.