Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3815/The Private View
I take train home every evening from one of our best stations. Crowned heads fairly tumble over one another there in their anxiety to get a first glimpse of London. Personages are matters of daily arrival.
The other night I reached my station just as a Personage was due. A drive led from his platform to the outside world. On one side of it were lined up the public six deep. On the other side of it was the left luggage office. Four policemen saw to it that no person crossed to the other side except on business.
I began crossing.
"Not that side," said Robert, "unless you want the left luggage."
"The left luggage," I explained, "is my one desire."
I crossed.
The clerk was usually prompt.
"What's yours?" he said.
"Since you ask," I replied, "I could do with a small stout; or, alternatively, a sherry and bitters."
He kept silence, but with a touch of urgency in it. It is hard to temporize when confronted with a businesslike silence. Yet my view of the drive was worth fighting for.
"I might leave my watch," I continued after a brief hesitation, "but the fact is I left it last week with my only godson. Have you a godson? You know what they are—always wanting something."
"Come along, now," said the official brusquely. Robert, too, was becoming restive.
"Very well; I will deposit my hat. You will be careful with it, won't you?"
He accepted my hat untenderly.
"What name?"
"'George,'" I said; "but they call me 'Winkles' at home."
He was a man not easily moved. He wrote down "George" without hesitation on a bit of pink paper and asked for twopence as he gave it to me.
Just then, to my great relief, the Boat Express arrived. I searched in all my pockets and at last found half-a-soverign.
I told you he was a man not easily moved. He gave me nine-and-tenpence without a word, but with more half-pennies than was quite nice.
There was a stir in the crowd. I must hang on yet a little, or give it up, or stand six deep. I cannot stand standing six deep. But it is the duty of every citizen to welcome Personages.
Then I bethought me of my pink paper.
I summoned the man who was not easily moved and presented it. "The deposit," I explained, "was a hat—a felt hat—I cannot be sure of the size, but at a guess I should put it somewhere between 7 and 8."
But he had already retrieved it.
I took it and replaced it on my head as I turned in the nick of time to take it off to the Personage. He gave me a very sweet smile, the memory of which I cherish so fondly that I am loth to attribute it to the fashionable dent I subsequently discovered in my bowler.