Prince Blank, who was a stout gentleman, though he tried to disguise the fact, seldom found himself alone. When he did, he generally indulged himself in a little healthy relaxation. With two hours’ run to Southampton before him, free from all possibility of intrusion, Prince Blank let loose the buttons of his powerfully built waistcoat, rested his bald head on the top of his chair, stretched his great legs across another, and closed his terrible, small eyes.
For an instant it seemed to Prince Blank that a draught had entered into the carriage. As, however, the sensation immediately passed away, he did not trouble to wake up. Then the Prince dreamed that somebody was in the carriage with him – was sitting opposite to him. This being an annoying sort of dream, the Prince opened his eyes for the purpose of dispelling it. There was somebody sitting opposite to him – a very grimy little person, wiping blood off its face and hands with a dingy handkerchief. Had the Prince been a man capable of surprise, he would have been surprised.
“It’s all right,” assured him Tommy. “I ain’t here to do any harm. I ain’t an Anarchist.”
The Prince, by a muscular effort, retired some four or five inches and commenced to rebutton his waistcoat.
“How did you get here?” asked the Prince.
“’Twas a bigger job than I’d reckoned on,” admitted Tommy, seeking a dry inch in the smeared handkerchief, and finding none. “But that don’t matter,” added Tommy cheerfully, “now I’m here.”
“If you do not wish me to hand you over to the police at Southampton, you had better answer my questions,” remarked the Prince drily.
Tommy was not afraid of princes, but in the lexicon of her harassed youth “Police” had always been a word of dread.
“I wanted to get at you.”
“I gather that.”
“There didn’t seem any other way. It’s jolly difficult to get at you. You’re so jolly artful.”
“Tell me how you managed it.”
“There’s a little bridge for signals just outside Waterloo. I could see that the train would have to pass under it. So I climbed up and waited. It being a foggy night, you see, nobody twigged me. I say, you are Prince Blank, ain’t you?”
“I am Prince Blank.”
“Should have been mad if I’d landed the wrong man.”
“Go on.”
“I knew which was your carriage – leastways, I guessed it; and as it came along, I did a drop.” Tommy spread out her arms and legs to illustrate the action. “The lamps, you know,” explained Tommy, still dabbing at her face – “one of them caught me.”
“And from the roof?”
“Oh, well, it was easy after that. There’s an iron thing at the back, and steps. You’ve only got to walk downstairs and round the corner, and there you are. Bit of luck your other door not being locked. I hadn’t thought of that. Haven’t got such a thing as a handkerchief about you, have you?”
The Prince drew one from his sleeve and passed it to her. “You mean to tell me, boy – ”
“Ain’t a boy,” explained Tommy. “I’m a girl!”
She said it sadly. Deeming her new friends such as could be trusted, Tommy had accepted their statement that she really was a girl. But for many a long year to come the thought of her lost manhood tinged her voice with bitterness.
“A girl!”
Tommy nodded her head.
“Umph!” said the Prince; “I have heard a good deal about the English girl. I was beginning to think it exaggerated. Stand up.”
Tommy obeyed. It was not altogether her way; but with those eyes beneath their shaggy brows bent upon her, it seemed the simplest thing to do.
“So. And now that you are here, what do you want?”
“To interview you.”
Tommy drew forth her list of questions.
The shaggy brows contracted.
“Who put you up to this absurdity? Who was it? Tell me at once.”
“Nobody.”
“Don’t lie to me. His name?”
The terrible, small eyes flashed fire. But Tommy also had a pair of eyes. Before their blaze of indignation the great man positively quailed. This type of opponent was new to him.
“I’m not lying.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the Prince.
And at this point it occurred to the Prince, who being really a great man, had naturally a sense of humour, that a conference conducted on these lines between the leading statesman of an Empire and an impertinent hussy of, say, twelve years old at the outside, might end by becoming ridiculous. So the Prince took up his chair and put it down again beside Tommy’s, and employing skilfully his undoubted diplomatic gifts, drew from her bit by bit the whole story.
“I’m inclined, Miss Jane,” said the Great Man, the story ended, “to agree with our friend Mr. Hope. I should say your métier was journalism.”
“And you’ll let me interview you?” asked Tommy, showing her white teeth.
The Great Man, laying a hand heavier than he guessed on Tommy’s shoulder, rose. “I think you are entitled to it.”
“What’s your views?” demanded Tommy, reading, “of the future political and social relationships – ”
“Perhaps,” suggested the Great Man, “it will be simpler if I write it myself.”
“Well,” concurred Tommy; “my spelling is a bit rocky.”
The Great Man drew a chair to the table.
“You won’t miss out anything – will you?” insisted Tommy.
“I shall endeavour, Miss Jane, to give you no cause for complaint,” gravely he assured her, and sat down to write.
Not till the train began to slacken speed had the Prince finished. Then, blotting and refolding the paper, he stood up.
“I have added some instructions on the back of the last page,” explained the Prince, “to which you will draw Mr. Hope’s particular attention. I would wish you to promise me, Miss Jane, never again to have recourse to dangerous acrobatic tricks, not even in the sacred cause of journalism.”
“Of course, if you hadn’t been so jolly difficult to get at – ”
“My fault, I know,” agreed the Prince. “There is not the least doubt as to which sex you belong to. Nevertheless, I want you to promise me. Come,” urged the Prince, “I have done a good deal for you – more than you know.”
“All right,” consented Tommy a little sulkily. Tommy hated making promises, because she always kept them. “I promise.”
“There is your Interview.” The first Southampton platform lamp shone in upon the Prince and Tommy as they stood facing one another. The Prince, who had acquired the reputation, not altogether unjustly, of an ill-tempered and savage old gentleman, did a strange thing: taking the little, blood-smeared face between his paws, he kissed it. Tommy always remembered the smoky flavour of the bristly grey moustache.
“One thing more,” said the Prince sternly – “not a word of all this. Don’t open your mouth to speak of it till you are back in Gough Square.”
“Do you take me for a mug?” answered Tommy.
They behaved very oddly to Tommy after the Prince had disappeared. Everybody took a deal of trouble for her, but none of them seemed to know why they were doing it. They looked at her and went away, and came again and looked at her. And the