are never called on to perform that small feat. It is only when a
friend is going on a longish journey, and will be absent for a longish
time, that we turn up at the railway station. The dearer the friend,
and the longer the journey, and the longer the likely absence, the
earlier do we turn up, and the more lamentably do we fail. Our failure
is in exact ratio to the seriousness of the occasion, and to the depth
of our feeling.

In a room, or even on a door-step, we can make the farewell quite
worthily. We can express in our faces the genuine sorrow we feel. Nor
do words fail us. There is no awkwardness, no restraint, on either
side. The thread of our intimacy has not been snapped. The leave-
taking is an ideal one. Why not, then, leave the leave-taking at that?
Always, departing friends implore us not to bother to come to the
railway station next morning. Always, we are deaf to these entreaties,
knowing them to be not quite sincere. The departing friends would
think it very odd of us if we took them at their word. Besides, they
really do want to see us again. And that wish is heartily
reciprocated. We duly turn up. And then, oh then, what a gulf yawns!
We stretch our arms vainly across it. We have utterly lost touch. We
have nothing at all to say. We gaze at each other as dumb animals gaze
at human beings. We `make conversation'--and such conversation! We
know that these are the friends from whom we parted overnight. They
know that we have not altered. Yet, on the surface, everything is
different; and the tension is such that we only long for the guard to
blow his whistle and put an end to the farce.

On a cold grey morning of last week I duly turned up at Euston, to see
off an old friend who was starting for America.