ty in him than was
altogether seemly. At any rate, he spoke to me.

"Do you know if the Continental train is punctual?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I answered. "This guard would tell us, perhaps."

"Signalled in, sir," the man declared. "Two minutes late only."

My new acquaintance thanked me and lit a cigarette. He seemed in no
hurry to depart, and I was equally anxious to engage him in
conversation. For although he was dressed with the trim and quiet
precision of the foreigner or man of affairs, there was something about
his beardless face, his broadly humorous mouth, and easy, nonchalant
bearing which suggested the person who juggled always with the ball of
life.

"Marvellous!" he murmured, looking after the guard. "Two minutes late
from Paris--and perhaps beyond. It is a wonderful service. Now, if I had
come to meet any one, and had a pressing appointment immediately
afterwards, this train would have been an hour late. As it is--ah, well,
one is foolish to grumble," he added, with a little shrug of the
shoulders.

"You, like me, then," I remarked, "are a loiterer."

He flashed a keen glance upon me.

"I see that I have met," he said slowly, "with someone of similar tastes
to my own. I will confess at once that you are right. For myself I feel
that there is nothing more interesting in this great city of yours than
to watch the people coming and going from it. All your railway stations
fascinate me, especially those which are the connecting links with other
countries. Perhaps it is because I am an idle man, and must needs find
amusement somewhere."

"Yet," I objected, "for a single face or personality which is
suggestive, one sees a thousand of the type which only irritates--the
great rank and file of the commonplace. I wonder, after all, whether the
game is worth the candle."

"One in a thousand," he repeated thoughtfully. "Yet think what that one
may mean--a walking drama, a tragedy, a comedy, an epitome of life or
death. There is more to be read in the face of that one than in the
three hundred pages of the novel over which we yawn ourselves to sleep.
Here is the train! Now let us watch the people together--that is, if you
really mean that you have no friends to look out for."

"I really mean it," I assured him. "I am here out of the idlest
curiosity. I am by profession a scribbler, and I am in search of an
idea."

Once more he regarded me curiously.

"Your name is Greatson, is it not--Arnold Grea