perfect yet. I'm still a martyr to platform fright. A railway station
is the most difficult of all places to act in, as you have discovered
for yourself.' `But,' I said with resentment, `I wasn't trying to act.
I really felt.' `So did I, my boy,' said Le Ros. `You can't act
without feeling. What's his name, the Frenchman--Diderot, yes--said
you could; but what did he know about it? Didn't you see those tears
in my eyes when the train started? I hadn't forced them. I tell you I
was moved. So were you, I dare say. But you couldn't have pumped up a
tear to prove it. You can't express your feelings. In other words, you
can't act. At any rate,' he added kindly, `not in a railway station.'
`Teach me!' I cried. He looked thoughtfully at me. `Well,' he said at
length, `the seeing-off season is practically over. Yes, I'll give you
a course. I have a good many pupils on hand already; but yes,' he
said, consulting an ornate note-book, `I could give you an hour on
Tuesdays and Fridays.'

His terms, I confess, are rather high. But I don't grudge the
investment.


A MEMORY OF A MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

Often I have presentiments of evil; but, never having had one of them
fulfilled, I am beginning to ignore them. I find that I have always
walked straight, serenely imprescient, into whatever trap Fate has
laid for me. When I think of any horrible thing that has befallen me,
the horror is intensified by recollection of its suddenness. `But a
moment before, I had been quite happy, quite secure. A moment later--'
I shudder. Why be thus at Fate's mercy always, when with a little
ordinary second sight...Yet no! That is the worst of a presentiment: