"We all--there were two or three other people in the compartment--felt
that this was going too far; and I knew it only too well when the man
lowered his paper to see what was happening and revealed an elderly
face with a grey beard absolutely out of keeping with those vigorous
legs.

"To my intense relief, however, he seemed to have been too much
engrossed by his paper to have heard. At any rate he asked my friend
to repeat his remark.

"Here, you will agree, was, if ever, an opening for what we call
presence of mind.

"My friend, like myself, had been so taken aback by the apparition of
more than middle age which confronted him when the paper was lowered
that for the moment he could say nothing; the other passengers were in
an ecstasy of anticipation; the man himself, a formidable antagonist
if he became nasty, waited for the reply with a non-committal
expression which might conceal pugnacity and might genuinely have
resulted from not hearing and desiring to hear.

"And then occurred one of the most admirable instances of
resourcefulness in history. With an effort of self-collection and
a readiness for which I shall always honour him, my friend said,
speaking with precise clearness, 'I beg your pardon, Sir, but,
mistaking you for a golfing friend of mine at Babbacombe, I asked
you why you were not in Torquay. I offer my apologies.'

"At these words the golfer bowed and resumed his paper, the other
passengers ceased for the moment to have the faintest interest in a