I Forbid the Banns! — page 398: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

388 | “7 FORBID THE BANNS!” the fact of his being on speaking terms with a person pos- sessing such undoubted guarantees of respectability con- ferred distinction upon the whole compartment. Charlton said “ Indeed!” and relapsed once more, turn- ing all his attention to the solution of the question which was being rattled out from every carriage and thundered through the horrible blackness of the tunnels, “ Shall L be im time?” At last he caught a glimpse of the sea, glittering in light ripples beneath the gold of the declining sun. Ships were in the distance—the white sails of cutter yachts, the thin, dark line of a steamer’s smoke, the monstrous mass of an ironclad, the canvas of a fishing boat—he saw all these, and he felt the salt sea breeze upon his face as he looked out of the carriage window. The terminus at Utterport is at the quay side. When Julian left the carriage he ran to the place of exit from the Station. A quay porter with a brass badge on his arm was standing outside. ‘Tf you show me the Ret faliag liner Pango Pango I'll give you half a crown,” he said. ‘‘Can you show me her ?”’ “Certainly, sir; no difficulty in the world about that,” said the man. ‘ But you must hurry, sir, or you will be too late.” “Thank Heaven! thank Heaven! I am in time,” thought Julian as he followed the porter, who had broken into a trot. The man hurried along the quay side for a few hundred yards and then crossed to the breakwater, which, as every- one knows, is surmounted by a granite parapet breast high. At one side of the breakwater are the quays, at the other is the open Channel. The porter ran up the high stone steps and Julian followed him until they were side by side, with their heads above the granite of the parapet. com (a) LOOKS