Ask her what her gender is, even though he knows already

“Then tell me, are you a woman?” Walter asked, if only to fulfill her expectations.

The conductor shrugged. “As if the Clockwork Railways would hire a woman. Too likely to be harassed or something, I believe was the justification?”

So saying, the conductor exited the compartment, leaving brother and sister alone once more. Walter scoffed at her deflection. She must just enjoy tricking people then.

Charlotte smiled a little bit sleepily as the young conductor left to wake the rest of the passengers. “I like him.”

“Him?" Walter raised his eyebrows.

"Eh? Eh?! But he said he was a man!" his sister said, clearly confused.

Walter ruffled her hair. "Oh sweet sister, how naive. She was lying of course. But my eyes saw through her disguise."

"I don't believe you," Charlotte said with a huff.

"Then, we could run her down and strip her naked if you'd like?" Walter offered. His sister reddened at the thought.

Any words she would have said were cut off by the screech of brakes as the train pulled to a halt. Walter reached up and pulled his suitcase from the rack above the seats. A few seconds later, his sister’s suitcase joined his.

“Come, sister mine. I can manage to stay awake at odd hours, but if I could, I would rather get some amount of rest before tomorrow.” Charlotte agreed, following sleepily after her brother, now that the adrenaline from seeing London for the first time was beginning to fade. Thoughts of the apparently female conductor disappeared from her mind, replaced by fatigue.

As they stepped from the train, Walter looked around. His uncle was supposed to meet them here. And there he was.

“Walter m’ boy! ‘Ow ya doin’?” the large, broad shouldered man shouted as he pushed through the crowd. Walter moved towards him and raised an arm in greeting, his other arm being clutched by his sister.

“Hello, Uncle Thompson. It is good to see you again.”

Uncle Thompson gave a hearty chuckle. “Aye, tis’ that.” He glanced over towards where Charlotte was clutching to Walter’s arm barely staying awake. “Ah, but there’ll be time ‘nough later. Let’s get you two rugrats back to my brother’s place so you can get some sleep. And me as well, I’d reckon.”

“As you say,” Walter said, following his uncle with his sister and their luggage in tow. “Though two things, quickly. First, why on earth are you tired? Don’t you just sit about Uncle Charleston’s house all day?”

Uncle Thompson frowned. “I do more than that. I cook too, sometimes. Help out the servants as well. I believe I got in a fist fight with a goose once. And I read. Why, you’ll never find a better read sailor upon all the seas!”

“Not all together the most difficult thing, considering most sailors can’t read.” Walter sighed. “Though I guess I can’t really fault you for laziness, considering that I’ve never done an honest day’s work in my life.”

“You wound me, Walter m’ boy,” Thompson said. The man’s face darkened slightly, but Walter smiled up at his uncle to show that no real harm was meant by his words. The man may be a failed merchant who did nothing but sit about his brother’s house and waste the day away, but at the very least he was something. Which was more than Walter was right now.

“The second point,” Walter said, breaking from his thoughts. “I must admit, Uncle, I have never heard the word rugrat before.”

Uncle Thompson smiled, any touch of his slight bad mood at Walter’s blunt statement of his situation gone. “Of course not. I made it up myself, dinn ya know? ‘S what I call children. Ya know, because they’re like little rats, always scurrying around across the rugs like this and that and driving the womenfolk up the walls while the menfolk just look at them and go ‘I dunno see the problem,’”

“I do not think,” Walter said tiredly, “that I like being called that much. Neither my sister nor I are children. We are adults now.”

“Adults? Bah, you aren’t an adult until you’ve slept with a lass, drunk a keg on your own, and killed a man, regardless of your age,” Uncle Thompson said.

“I can see why father dislikes you so much,” Walter sighed. It was far too late at night to be dealing with his Uncle Thompson.

“Aye, you little rugrat you. He finds me disagreeable for all the reasons you like me, is not that so?” Uncle Thompson stopped walking for a second and turned around. “But here, no reason to tire you out more.” And so saying, he picked Charlotte and Walter up and tossed them onto his shoulder like they were bags of potatoes or the like. Waving to one of the servants that was nearby to grab their luggage, the man set a brisk pace towards their method of transportation.

“I do not think that I like being carried like this either,” Walter complained from where he was slung like a sack of potatoes.

Uncle Thompson turned his head to look at the teen on his shoulder. “Too bad I care oh so little for what you like and dislike.”

Walter sighed and resigned himself to the indignity of being hoisted in the air as if he were nothing more than produce to be sent to market. After all, one did not win an argument with Uncle Thompson. The teen had only met Thompson twice before, and the man was the most bull-headed thing he had seen. And he meant that literally. The last time Uncle Thompson had visited their family, some four years ago, he had gotten into a wrestling match with a full grown ox. It was an even fight, at least until Uncle Thompson decided to headbutt the ox. Only one of them was left standing after that, and to be sure it was not the ox.

“Alley-oop!” his uncle cried as he tossed Walter and Charlotte into the waiting car, where they landed in the backseat in a tangle of limbs. Their luggage followed quickly after, and soon they were driving.