cabby up for my trunk and hat-box. Mind and
send my letters on. Keep my door shut. Good-
by!

I longed to breathe on the Wiltshire downs,
where the strong-limbed hares enjoy a vacation
uninterrupted by the opening of law courts,
and where rabbits are regardless of Westminster.
Tidd on my hat-box, a neat little book on
Real Property in my great-coat pocket. I was
off.  I passed through the black jaws of
Temple Bar, but for one trifling regret, a free
and happy man. I knew that in less than an
hour I should pass, as out of a cave, from the
tawny fog into the bright autumn air, with just
a dash of ice in it, so that the streams which
bisect our partridge stubble-fields down in
Wiltshire will look like iced sherry and water.

But "there's always a somethink,"  as my
laundress, Mrs. Dustall, who is given to forming
proverbial lozenges from her life experiences,
says; and there was "somethink" now.  We all
of us have Damocles' swords hanging over our
turtle-soup dishes. There is always (if I may
use the homely but most powerful simile) a
button off the shirt of our temper.  There is
always a corn twitching upon the mental foot;
so that the perfect balance of health, temper,
and wealth is not very long together
maintained.

A fretful presentiment of a key lost, or a
desk left unlocked, buzzed about me like a little
mosquito demon.  In and out it went, almost
visible, through this cab window and out at
the other.  What was it?  I locked my dressing-
case, my studs are all right in my shirt-front,
my desk I put away in a fireproof cupboard.
What was it? "There's indeed always
a somethink," philosophical Mrs. Dustall!

I crane out of window: yes, trunk with the
red star all right, parchment label fluttering
prettily in the wind; hamper, "glass with
care;" all chained to the rail on the roof
of the cab; hat-box, plaid, umbrella in oilskin
case all right. Still that mosquito of evil.
Still the demon gnat flying over my nerves.
What can it be that pinches me like a tight
boot, and yet has no name? I have it! It was
that railway accident I was reading, falling upon
that previous presentiment; it was that which,
finding some unguarded loophole of my nerves,
had got in, disagreed with me, and done the
mischief.  Strange that I, who have skimmed
over hundreds of railway accidents, to get
quickly to the end and see the total deaths,
should be moved by the loss of three men on
the Eastern Counties!

I arrive at the station. A slamming of doors,
the wave of a red hand-flag, a smother of white
steam under the station roof, and we are off;
shot out into the fog, that wraps us at once in
its dingy arms; rattle, battle—that is the brick
walling by the engine sheds; clamp, champ—
that is the great fire-horse, striking out its
brave limbs; jolt, rattle! jolt, battle!—that is
crossing the turn-tables; that fellow in the green
corduroy jacket, bending on the low crank-
handle, is, I believe, the pointsman.

Pointsman: something bit me, as if a flea had
got into my mind. Why that is what they called
the fellow killed yesterday at Splash Bridge, on
the Eastern Counties line.  What malicious
demon is it puts these things in a nervous man's
head just as he is settling himself comfortably
in the corner of a railway carriage, with Tidd
on the seat before him, and a neat little book
on Real Property fastened to it by a strap. I
suppose it is that special small demon whose
peculiar province it is to disturb men's
equilibrium, and generally unchristianise one by
blunting one's penknife, spoiling one's pen,
ironing off one's shirt buttons, mislaying one's
studs, making one's boot pinch, and rendering it
impossible to arrange one's white tie with the
bow anywhere but at the back of the neck. The
fog thins; it is getting positively bright, though
we are not at Kingston yet; fields widen, trees
and hedges flow by us as if an inundation was
bearing them away, or as if we were in the ark,
and were drifting on fast past them.

Three stations soon distanced.  Whiz, faster!
whiz, faster! slide like a bullet through a gun
barrel.  Whiz! that's a viaduct arch.  Whisk!
click! clack! that's another station and some
shunting rails.

Flight of white telegraph washing-lines, miles
of signal-posts, and split red and white targets,
and dull red and green lamps like prize jewels.
Faster, till it takes the breath away. Out with
the repeater and time it.  Fast as the pulse--
one, two, three!—fifty miles an hour if it is a
yard.

Slower! slower! now we slacken!  I thought
we could not hold the pace. Slower!  My
opposite friend gets anxious and looks out of
window.  We can't be going to stop at
Farnborough station.  . . .

          CRASH!  SMASH!  BASH!

Here imagine the end of the world.  Fancy
yourselves animalculæ, shut up by accident
inside a huge Brobdignag farmer's watch
with a hizz, and whiz, and centrifugal railway
rush, when snap goes the mainspring.
Imagine those small creatures' feelings of
horror, surprise, and astonishment, and you
have ours, minus the fear. I felt no nerve
shaken, though my head was giddy and my spine
was numbed. Imagine a solitary man in a factory
when a boiler bursts in the room above, and
the mill falls to pieces like a card house
suddenly round his ears. Imagine a quiet man
looking out of his bedroom window, accidentally,
as he is shaving, and seeing the deluge coming
up to the front door for a morning visit.  Imagine
a Pompeian just home from Athens, and
awoke by the red lava stealing under his bedroom
door.

Bang! shiver! smash! bash! then an awful
lull and death stop as of a mainspring run
out.  It was as if the train had been struck
full butt by a successful Armstrong shot.  It
was as if we had been riding inside a battering-
ram, and had at last come full smash on the wall
which had been too much for us.  I never rode
on a cannon-ball, and don't want to do so; but an