How Dryden puts you on a train is as follows. He stalls his elderly Wolseley on the ‘TAXIS ONLY’ sign, leaps out, pops the jack under the sill and gives it a couple of turns. This, he finds, gives him some twenty minutes’ grace. Then he strikes a Joan of Arc stance, umbrella pointing to the empyrean, and cries ‘Porter!’ again and again, in tones of increasing pitch and theatricality, until every sensate being within earshot is frantically seeking porters for the poor gentleman and you, his passenger, are quite magenta-hued with shame and chagrin.

When a porter is at last thrust forward by the compassionate throng, rubbing his red eyes and peering about him in the unaccustomed daylight like a spider evicted from a Scotchman’s purse, Dryden takes him firmly by the arm.

‘This gentleman,’ he explains, laying a forefinger on your waistcoat, ‘has to travel to London. It is most important.’ He gently turns the porter to the East and points along the up-line. ‘London,’ he repeats. ‘Pray see to it, and you are to keep this for yourself.’ With this he turns away, his duty done, he has looked after you. The porter gapes at the tiny coin pressed into his palm, but his sense of humour prevails and he takes your bag with a half-bow and offers to carry your umbrella, too. He leads you to the ticket-office and explains to the clerk just what it is you need. When he has got you into a corner-seat-facing-the-engine in a first-class compartment and has straightened the anti-macassar, he looks around as though seeking a travelling-rug to tuck about your knees. You over-tip him grossly, I need scarcely say. You know that later you may find it all most amusing, but just now you want to spit.

As the train gave a preliminary lurch I rose and looked out of the window. Dryden was on the platform – perhaps he had been asking the guard to look after me. But no, he was hurrying along, bobbing up and down to scan first-class compartments.

‘Hoy!” I cried, waving. He broke into a canter, but the train was a match for him.

‘Turnips!’ he seemed to cry as he lost ground. ‘Turnips!’

‘Turnips?’ I roared, but by then we were out of earshot.