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her.
I think we may have exchanged half a dozen words at

dinner, when passing one another the sugar or the bread.

But they were certainly all we exchanged, and after we

left the dining-car, I did not see Miss Bradley again until

we reached Calais Maritime.
And then our acquaintance really began, and it began

entirely on my initiative. There were plenty of porters, and

I called one without difficulty from the window of the train.

But as I got off, I saw Miss Bradley standing on the platform

with two large very old suit-cases. The porters were passing

her by.

I am quite sure that had she been an even slightly attracive woman, I should not have gone up to her, but she was

so ugly and looked so helpless that I approached her, and

said:
"My porter has a barrow. Would you like him to put your

cases on it too?" Miss Bradley turned and looked at me.
"Oh — thank you. It is very kind of you."
My porter, without great enthusiasm, added her luggage

to mine; and in a few minutes we found ourselves on board

the Channel ferry.1
Before the boat had been under way for ten minutes, I

realized that Miss Bradley was a remarkable bore. Shyly

and hesitantly she kept on talking about nothing, and made

no remark worth taking notice of.
I learned that she had been in Italy a fortnight, visiting

her sister who was married to an Italian. She had never been

out of England before.
I did not look forward to travelling to London with her

for another four hours, so excusing myself I went along to

the booking-office on board the boat and booked myself a

seat on the Golden Arrow.
Miss Bradley was travelling by the ordinary boat train,

so this would mean that we should part at Dover.
At Dover I hired one of the crew to carry our luggage.
Normally, passengers for the Golden Arrow are dealt

with by the customs first, as the train leaves twenty minutes

before the ordinary boat train. When the boy asked if we were

going on the Golden Arrow, I hesitated and then said

"Yes".
It was too difficult to explain that one of us was and one

of us wasn't, and then it would get Miss Bradley through the

customs quickly.
As we went towards the Customs Hall, I explained care-

fully to her that my train left before hers, but that I would

see her through the customs; the boy would then take the

luggage to our trains, and she could sit comfortably in hers

till it left. Miss Bradley said, "Oh, thank you very much."
The boy, of course, had put our suit-cases together on the

counter, and Miss Bradley and I went and stood before them.

In due course the customs examiner reached us, looked at

the four suit-cases in that human X-ray manner which customs examiners must practise night and morning, and said,

"This is all yours?"
I was not quite sure whether he was speaking to me, or me

and Miss Bradley. So I replied, "Well — mine and this lady's".
The examiner said, "But you're together?"
"For the moment," I said rather foolishly, smiling at Miss

Bradley.
"Yes," said the customs man patiently. "But are you travelling together?
Is this your joint luggage?"
"Well, no. Not exactly. We're just sharing a porter."
I pointed my cases out. I had nothing to declare, and

declared it. Without asking me to open them, the examiner

chalked the cases and then, instead of moving to my left

and dealing with Miss Bradley, moved to the right, and began X-raying somebody else's luggage.
The boy took my cases off the counter. I hesitated for a

moment, but then decided it was no use waiting for Miss

Bradley since we were about to part, so I said:
"Well, I'll say good-bye now, and go and find my train.

I expect the examiner'll come back and do you next. The

porter will stay and bring our luggage up to the trains

when you're through. Good-bye."
Miss Bradley said, "Oh... good-bye and thank you so

much." We shook hands and I left.
I found my seat in the Golden Arrow and began to read.
It must have been about twenty minutes later that I suddenly realized the train was due to leave in five minutes and

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