every time I emerged. Finally he took a sheet of slightly soiled paper
and pencilled on it a schedule of our movements. It ran:--

Mileage. Place. Time.

-- Euston 6.55 P.M.
5½ Willesden [7.4] "
17½ Watford [7.18] "
46¾ Bletchley [7.50] "
82¼ Rugby [8.24] "
94¼ Coventry [8.36] "
113 Birmingham 8.55 "

"To give this the very careful consideration it deserves," said I, "I
must be left absolutely to myself."

Later on, feeling that I had perhaps been rude, I offered the man a
cigar by way of compensation. He accepted it as a mark of esteem and
burst forth into more conversation. By now a little fed up with trains
himself he suggested, for the sake of something new to say, that he
had met me before somewhere. At first I had some idea of asking for my
cigar to be returned, but instead I gave in to his persistence. More,
I joined in the conversation with an energy which surprised him.

"Now I come to think of it we _have_ seen each other before; but
where?" I said.

He thought promiscuously, disconnectedly and aloud. I could accept
none of his suggestions because all referred to commercial rooms in
provincial hotels, places to which I have not the _entrée_. "But I