himself
no matter what happened to anyone else, and flung me against the woman
with the baby. Two or three excitable Frenchmen just ahead also
attempted to turn, thus nearly throwing the little man onto his knees.
The large bag which he carried hit me across the shins; in his terror he
almost embraced me as he helped himself up: the nurse, as she stumbled,
pitched forward onto my shoulder, and if I had not seized the howling
baby, it would certainly have fallen under our feet.

My bowler was knocked over my eyes, and though an officer of the boat
cried the reassuring intelligence that it was a false alarm--that the
gangway was "all right," and never had been anything but all right, I
could not readjust my hat nor see what was going on until the fat nurse
had obligingly retrieved her charge, without a word of thanks.

My first thought was for the letter-case in my pocket, for I had a
horrible idea that the scare might have been got up for the express
purpose of robbing me of it. But I could feel its outline as plainly as
ever under my coat, and decided, thankfully, that after all the alarm
had had nothing to do with me.

I had wired for a private cabin, thinking it would be well to be out of
the way of my fellow-passengers during the crossing: but the weather had
been rough for a day or two (it was not yet the middle of April) and
everything was already engaged; therefore I walked the deck most of the
time, always conscious of the unusual thickness of my breast pocket. The
little man paced up and down, too, though his yellow face grew slowly
green, and he would have been much better off below, lying on his back.
As for the two others, they also remained on deck, talking together as
they leaned against the rail; but though I passed them now and again, I
noticed that the little man invariably avoided them by turning before he
reached their "pitch."

At the Gare du Nord I regretted that I had not carried my own bag,
because if I had it would have been examined on the boat, and all bother
would have been over. But rather than run any risks in the crowd
thronging the _douane_, I decided to let the suitcase look after itself,
and send down for it with the key from the hotel later. Again the little
man was close to my side as I went in search of a cab, for all his
things had been gone through by the custom house officer in mid-channel,
so that he too was free to depart without delay. He even seemed to cling
to me, somewhat