'Perhaps you are too insolent,' he added, 'to inform me of the time of the next London train ?' 'It leaves in three-quarters of an hour,' returned the innkeeper with alacrity.

'You can easily catch it.' Joseph's position was one of considerable weakness.

On the one hand, it would have been well to avoid the direct line of railway, since it was there he might expect his nephews to lie in wait for his recapture; on the other, it was highly desirable, it was even strictly needful, to get the bill discounted ere it should be stopped.

To London, therefore, he decided to proceed on the first train; and there remained but one point to be considered, how to pay his fare.
Joseph's nails were never clean; he ate almost entirely with his knife.
I doubt if you could say he had the manners of a gentleman; but he had better than that, a touch of genuine dignity.

Was it from his stay in Asia Minor?
Was it from a strain in the Finsbury blood sometimes alluded to by customers?
At least, when he presented himself before the station-master, his salaam was truly Oriental, palm-trees appeared to crowd about the little office, and the simoom or the bulbul--but I leave this image to persons better acquainted with the East.