‘A big old ugly witch and I told her to go away and she went away,’ the little boy went on, in a quiet narrative to himself, ‘she came and said, “I’m going to eat you up,” and I said, “no, you’re not,” and I chased her away, the bad old mean witch.’

He stopped talking and looked up as the outside door of the coach opened and a man came in. He was an elderly man, with a pleasant face under white hair; his blue suit was only faintly touched by the disarray that comes from a long train trip. He was carrying a cigar, and when the little boy said, ‘Hi,’ the man gestured at him with the cigar and said, ‘Hello yourself, son.’ He stopped just beside the little boy’s seat, and leaned against the back, looking down at the little boy, who craned his neck to look upward. ‘What you looking for out that window?’ the man asked.

‘Witches,’ the little boy said promptly. ‘Bad old mean witches.’

‘I see,’ the man said. ‘Find many?’

‘My father smokes cigars,’ the little boy said.

‘All men smoke cigars,’ the man said. ‘Someday you’ll smoke a cigar, too.’

‘I’m a man already,’ the little boy said.

‘How old are you?’ the man asked.

The little boy, at the eternal question, looked at the man suspiciously for a minute and then said, ‘Twenty-six. Eight hunnerd and forty eighty.’

His mother lifted her head from the book. ‘Four,’ she said, smiling fondly at the little boy.

‘Is that so?’ the man said politely to the little boy. ‘Twenty-six.’ He nodded his head at the mother across the aisle. ‘Is that your mother?’

The little boy leaned forward to look and then said, ‘Yes, that’s her.’

‘What’s your name?’ the man asked.

The little boy looked suspicious again. ‘Mr Jesus,’ he said.

‘Johnny,’ the little boy’s mother said. She caught the little boy’s eye and frowned deeply.

‘That’s my sister over there,’ the little boy said to the man. ‘She’s twelve-and-a-half.’

‘Do you love your sister?’ the man asked. The little boy stared, and the man came around the side of the seat and sat down next to the little boy. ‘Listen,’ the man said, ‘shall I tell you about my little sister?’

The mother, who had looked up anxiously when the man sat down next to her little boy, went peacefully back to her book.

‘Tell me about your sister,’ the little boy said. ‘Was she a witch?’

‘Maybe,’ the man said.