antly, and continued in French: "Sometimes
my ignorance places me in great difficulty when _en voyage_ here."

Knowing French fairly well we soon commenced to chat in that language.
He struck me as a man of considerable refinement and education.
Therefore it was no surprise to me when he told me that, as an
official at the head office of the Credit Lyonnais in Paris, it was
his duty sometimes to visit their correspondents in the chief
commercial centres of Great Britain.

"I am on my way from Glasgow back to Paris," he said. "But I had to
break my journey in York this morning. I shall leave London for Paris
to-morrow. I shall travel by the air-route," he added; "it is so much
quicker, and far less fatiguing. I have been backwards and forwards to
the Croydon Aerodrome quite half a dozen times of late."

"Yes," I remarked. "Travel by aeroplane must be of very considerable
advantage to really busy men."

And thus we chatted until dinner was announced, and we went together
along the corridor to the restaurant-car, where we sat opposite each
other.

As the train sped along over the flat fertile country through
Doncaster and Grantham on that moonlit winter's night we sat
gossiping pleasantly, for I had looked forward to a lonely journey
back to London.

I have "knocked about" ever since the commencement of the war, but I
abhor a lonely four-hour railway journey. I had had enough of slow
railway journeys in France and elsewhere. But on that evening I
confess I was greatly taken with my fellow-traveller.

He had all the alertness and exquisite politeness of the Parisian, and
he compelled me to have a Benedictine at his expense. Then, as a _quid
pro quo_, he took one of my cigarettes.

Later, when we had concluded the usual and never-altering meal
provided by the Great Northern Railway Company--I often wonder who are
the culinary artists who devise those menus which face us on all
English trains--we returned to our compartment to stretch ourselves in
our corners and to smoke. Grantham we had passed and we were
approaching Peterborough, the old fen town with the ancient cathedral.

In French my friend the banker kept up a continuous chatter, even
though I was tired and drowsy. He had told me much concerning himself,
and I, in turn, told him of my profession and where I lived. I did not
tell him very much, for I am one of those persons who prefer to keep
themselves to themselves. I seldom give strangers any information.