it, I saw, to my horror, that he was drunk. The position was pleasant,
for the train was an express and was not timed to stop for a considerable
time. My odious fellow-passenger spent some time on the floor hunting for
his scattered coins. Then he slowly gathered himself up, and presently
became conscious of my presence. He studied me for some time and then
proposed to shut the window. I assented quietly, not wanting to discuss a
trifle, and feeling in deadly terror. Alone at night in an express, with
a man not drunk enough to be helpless but too drunk to be controlled.
Never, before or since, have I felt so thoroughly frightened, but I sat
there quiet and unmoved, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a
desperate resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose. The
man had risen again to his feet and had come over to me, when a jarring
noise was heard and the train began to slacken.

"What is that?" stammered my drunken companion.

"They are putting on the brakes to stop the train," I said very slowly
and distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to say
quietly the measured words.

The man sat down stupidly, staring at me, and in a minute or two more the
train pulled up at a station. It had been stopped by signal. In a moment
I was at the window, calling the guard. I rapidly explained to him that I
was travelling alone, that a half-drunken man was with me, and I begged
him to put me into another carriage. With the usual kindliness of a
railway official, the guard at once moved my baggage and myself into an
empty compartment, into which he locked me, and he kept a friendly watch
over me at every station at which we stopped until he landed me safely at
Glasgow.