It was nice of her then to begin to sing “Funiculi, Funicula,” and the others joined, the little boy very seriously, as if he now hated the song. Then they sang something more Irish, about the sea and coming back. But the throb of the rails made the song oddly Spanish and hopelessly desirous; they were near the end of the car, where the beat was single and strong.

After the lady in the raincoat undid her top button and suggested “Wild Colonial Boy,” her hatted head kept time, started to lead them—perhaps she kept a pub. The little boy, giving the ladies a meeting look, brought out a fiercely shining harmonica, as he would a pistol, and almost drowned them out. The American girl looked as if she did not know the words, but the lovers now sang, with faces strangely brave.

At some small, forgotten station a schoolgirl got on, took the vacant seat in this compartment, and opened a novel to page 1. They quieted. By the look of her it seemed they must be in Wales. They had scarcely got a word at the child before she began reading. She sat by the young wife; especially from her, the school hat hid the bent head like a candle snuffer; of her features only the little mouth, slightly open and working, stayed visible. Even her upper lip was darkly freckled, even the finger that lifted and turned the page.

The little boy sped his breath up the harmonica scale; the young wife said “Victor!” and they all felt sorry for him and had his name.

“Air,” she suddenly said, as if she felt their look. The man from Connemara hurled himself at the window and slid the pane, then at the corridor door, and opened it wide onto a woman passing with an eighth or nine-months-old baby. It was a red-haired boy with queenly jowls, squinting in at the world as if to say, “Will what has just been said be very kindly repeated?”

“Oh, isn’t he beautiful!” the young wife cried reproachfully through the door. She would have put out her hands.

There was no response. On they went.

“An English nurse traveling with an Irish child, look at that, he’s so grand, and such style, that dress, that petticoat, do you think she’s kidnaped the lad?” suggested the lady in the raincoat, puffing.

“Oh my God,” said the man from Connemara.

For a moment the schoolgirl made the only sounds—catching her breath and sobbing over her book.

“Kidnaping’s farfetched,” said the man from Connemara. “Maybe the woman’s deaf and dumb.”

“I couldn’t sleep this night thinking such wickedness was traveling on the train and on the boat with me.” The young wife’s skin flooded to her temples.

“It’s not your fault.”

The schoolgirl bent lower still and, still reading, opened a canvas satchel at her feet, in which—all looked—were a thermos, a lunchbox under lock and key, a banana, and a Bible. She selected the banana by feel, and brought it up and ate it as she read.