Sentence The Fourhundredandtenth

But that was precisely how it happened that Professor Sir Clement Dane became the first genuinely and independently verified person to meet himself coming back and it happened just like this: Sir Clement was both travelling to Melrose in a train pulled by the famous Flying Scotsman locomotive, No. 60103 in it's LNER Green Livery, with, sitting in a corner seat reading one of his own books, while keeping a weather eye on those irritating relatives of his, his own personal daemons, Professors Maude Lyttleton and Daphne Dumbiedykes diagonally facing him from further down the carriage, while, at exactly the same time, nose still carrying traces of the succus from that blasted cricket bat, he was also being driven at breakneck speed in an Ambulance from Dingleton Hill to Tweedbank Station which is the Borders Railway's busy terminus and both ambulance and train arrived at almost exactly the same time, although the train was slightly the later in coming to a complete stop, which is how the Sir Clement who had arrived by ambulance had time to climb out, assisted by the enthusiastic Trainee WPC Gertie Mountcastle and walk onto the platform in time to see the two

eminent lady professors disembark followed by several nonentities, laughing and gossiping as such empty-heads tend to do, and then the stately appearance of the other Sir Clement in the carriage doorway, glancing hither and thither in the hope of being noticed and recognised as, noticed and recognised he most undoubtedly was, by himself! and when their eyes met, as assuredly they did, the train-borne Sir Clement started, astonished to recognise himself looking keenly at himself and was nonplussed, utterly and for once completely lost for words, while his other self – having had some foreknowledge of the encounter - simply strode up to himself, tipped his hat to the other who, for

don't let it be said that Sir Clement is not every inch the gentleman, tipped his in return, and then offered his hand, which he took and both Sir Clements shook hands with each other: it was a photographer for the Border Telegraph who happened to be lounging about as such people are wont to do and who noticed the meeting, gave a somewhat theatrical 'double-take' and rushed forward to record the encounter for posterity, sensing a story, despite not knowing the identity of the two elderly gentlemen greeting one another, but then she, the photographer, saw Gertie standing close by and whispered sotto voce to her: “what's up, Doc? what's the story here? whit div ye ken, hen?” and the ebullient Trainee WPC, who had asked the Sir Clement whom she had accompanied in the ambulance what was going on, gave the photographer the scoop of her career and as Honeysuckle Horton -

having already given Gertie her card with an invitation to meet for a drink later, an invitation Gertie readily agreed to, not being terribly happy with her present 'single' state and rather liking Honeysuckle's pink hair - dashed off to file her story and photographic evidence of not only Time Travel, but also the possibility of interaction with the past and even the ability to influence it through the medium of Quantum Mechanics and Parallel Universes, not to mention Quantum Collisions and the permeability of the fabric of Space/Time itself, a notion she was sure her own editor would pooh-pooh, but would be far more readily accepted by the editor of the national Sumoon with its Day and Night Editions for she was already thinking way beyond her immediate future: a drinks-and-maybe-more date with the cute Trainee WPC followed by the nationals, photo-journalism, the next top war correspondent, or maybe undercover reportage and breaking into TV, oh her head was fair brimming with possibilities! now, while Ms Horton's head swam at the possibilities ahead of her, the two Sir Clement Danes had experienced something of a metanoia, perhaps not quite akin to St Paul's Damascene Conversion, but still pretty high up the rankings, become engrossed in conversation - their knowledge of everything prior to the moment of their stepping off the train being common, it was the month that the entombed Dane believed he had spent with the Americans, who thought they were in Vietnam, that proved to be the most talked about, mulled over, considered, weighed, examined, and dissected, especially by the one who hadn't been there, until he who had spoke of the four 'patients' in The Hold and mentioned that one was DCC Duncan Doubleday! and that brought Gertie out of her reverie regarding the photographer and she stepped forward: “what

about DCC Doubleday?” she asked and the great Dane who had spoken that name turned and gave Gertie the look for which he was renowned and dreaded in equal measure and invariably turned undergraduates to jelly and said, with all the superciliousness at his disposal: “I believe you to be a common Constable, please take us to your Leader!” and the other Dane echoed himself with: “your Leader!”