nch people. I did not believe that he had
really found out about that train. I declined to join in the search.
He and the boy went off together. They came back in about half an hour.
They said they had found a train standing by itself in a field and that
it must be ours because there was no other. The reasoning did not seen
conclusive to me, but I agreed to go and sleep in whatever train they
had found. I suggested that we should leave our luggage on the platform
and pick it up when the train got there at 6 a.m.

"That," said Thompson, "is just the way luggage gets lost. Suppose--I
don't say it's likely or even possible--but suppose the train we get
into goes somewhere else. Nice fools we'd look, turning up in Paris or
Marseilles without a brush or comb among us. No. Where I go I take my
luggage with me."

Thompson was evidently not so sure about that train as he pretended
to be. But I had reached a pitch of hopeless misery which left me
indifferent about the future. It did not seem to me to matter much
just then whether I ever got to X. or not. We had to make three trips,
stumbling over railway lines and sleepers, in the dark, falling into
wet ditches and slipping on muddy banks; but in the end we got all our
luggage, including the boy's top-coats, into a train which lay lifeless
and deserted in a siding.

This time Thompson and the boy slept. I sat up stiff with cold. At
half-past five a French railway porter opened our door and invited us
to descend, alleging that he wanted to clean the carriage. I was quite
pleased to wake Thompson who was snoring.

"Get up," I said, "there's a man here who wants to clean the carriage
and we've got to get out."

"I'm damned if I get out," said Thompson.

The Frenchman repeated his request most politely. If the gentlemen would
be good enough to descend he would at once clean the carriage.

Thompson fumbled in his pocket and got out an electric torch. At first
I thought he meant to make sure that the carriage required cleaning.
Thinking things over I came to the conclusion that he felt he could talk
French better if he could see a little. He turned his ray of light on
the Frenchman and said slowly and distinctly:

"Nous sommes officiers anglais, et les officiers anglais ne descendent
pas--jamais."

The Frenchman blinked uncertainly. Thompson added:

"Jamais de ma vie."

That settled the French porter. He was face to face with one of
the national idiosyncrasies of the Eng