“Yes. They’re on the train. The cub’s likely to stick to our heels all through the tour, I’m afraid.”

“Stage-struck?”

“What they used to call ‘shook on the pros.’ He hangs round Carolyn, I suppose you’ve noticed. She tells me his father—he’s a Sir Something Palmer and noisesomely rich—has packed him off to New Zealand with Weston in the hope of teaching him sense. Weston’s his cousin. The boy was sacked from his public school, I believe. Shipboard gossip.”

“It is strange,” said the tall man, “how a certain type of Englishman still regards the dominions either as a waste-paper basket or a purge.”

“You are not a colonial, surely?”

“Oh, no. I speak without prejudice. Hullo, I believe we’re stopping.”

A far-away whistle was followed by the sound of banging doors and a voice that chanted something indistinguishable. These sounds grew louder. Presently the far door of their own carriage opened and the guard came down the corridor.

“Five minutes at Ohakune for refreshments,” he chanted, and went out at the near door. Broadhead moved aside for him.

“Refreshments!” said Hambledon. “Good lord!”

“Oh, I don’t know. A cup of coffee perhaps. Anyway a gulp of fresh air.”

“Perhaps you’re right. What did he say was the name of the station?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like a rune or incantation.”

“O—ah—coo—nee,” said Susan Max, unexpectedly.

“Hullo, Susie, you’ve come up to breathe, have you?” asked Hambledon.

“I haven’t been to sleep, dear,” said Susan. “Not really asleep, you know.”

“I’d forgotten you were an Australian.”

“I am not an Australian. I was born in New Zealand. Australia is a four-days journey from—”

“I know, I know,” said Hambledon with a wink at the tall man.

“Well, it is provoking, dear,” said Miss Max huffily. “We don’t like to be called Australian. Not that I’ve anything against the Aussies. It’s the ignorance.”

A chain of yellow lights travelled past their windows. The train stopped and uttered a long steamy sigh. All along the carriage came the sound of human beings yawning and shuffling.

“I wish my father had never met my mother,” grumbled the comedian.

“Come on,” said Hambledon to the tall man.

They went out through the door. Courtney Broadhead was standing on the narrow iron platform of their carriage. His overcoat collar was turned up and his hat jammed over his eyes. He looked lost and miserable. The other two men stepped down on to the station platform. The cold night air smelt clean after the fug of the train. There was a tang in it, salutary and exciting.

“It smells like the inside of a flower shop,” said Hambledon. “Moss, and cold wet earth, and something else. Are we very high up in the world, I wonder?”

“I think we must be. To me it smells like mountain air.”

“What about this coffee?”