What a motley crowd we were: clerks in bowler hats; "knuts" in brown
suits, brown ties, brown shoes, and a horse-shoe tie-pin; tramp-like
looking men in rags and tatters and smelling of dirt and beer and rank
twist.

Old soldiers trying to "chuck a chest"; lanky lads from the country
gaping at the houses, shops and people.

Rough, broad-speaking, broad-shouldered men from the Lancashire
cotton-mills; shop assistants with polished boots, and some even with
kid gloves and a silver-banded cane. Here and there was a farm-hand in
corduroys and hob-nailed, cowdung-spattered boots, puffing at a broken
old clay pipe, and speaking in the "Darset" dialect. At the station
they had to have another "wet" in the refreshment room, and by the
time the train was due to start a good many were "canned up."

Boozy voices yelled out--

"'S long way . . . Tipper-airy . . ."

"Good-bye, Bill . . . 'ave . . . 'nother swig?"

"Don't ferget ter write, Bill . . ."

"Aw-right, Liz . . . Good-bye, Albert . . ."

We were locked in the carriage. There was much shouting and laughing.
. . . And so to Aldershot.