That he lived at Southend I knew from an observation he had let fall; and after watching the barrier at Fenchurch Street station for a couple of hours, I saw him enter an empty third-class smoking compartment five minutes before the departure of an evening train. Half-a-crown slipped into the guard’s hand, with a request that he would put me into the same carriage and reserve it, effected the desired result, and when the train moved out of the station the little man and myself had the compartment to ourselves. I knew from what I had heard of my companion’s remarks on the occasion when I had journeyed to Southend with him that, though talkative and inquisitive, he was also shrewd and observant, as men of his occupation generally are, and as it would be necessary to ask him two or three pertinent questions, I thought it advisable to let the first advance come from him. That he was already eyeing me in order to ascertain whether an overture towards sociability was likely to meet with a welcome, I could see. The result was apparently satisfactory, for after an introductory cough he inquired whether I would like the window up or down. Always beware on a railway journey, when you wish to be left to the company of your newspaper, of the man who is unduly anxious for your comfort. ’Twere wise to roar him at once into silence, for your gentle answer, instead of turning away wrath, is often too apt to beget it. Speak him civilly, and you deliver yourself bound into his hands; for you have scarce made your bow of acknowledgment, sunk back into your place and taken up your paper again, before his tongue is hammering banalities about the weather at the thick end of the wedge he has inserted. In the present instance, as the little man sat facing the engine and with the wind blowing directly in his face, whereas I was on the opposite and sheltered side, the window rights were, according to the unwritten laws of the road, entirely at his disposal. But as it suited my purpose to show a friendly front to his advances, I protested with many thanks that I had no choice in the matter, and awaited with composure the inevitable observation about the probability of rain before morning. From the weather and the crops we got to the results of a wet summer to seaside places generally, and thence to Southend. I remarked that I thought of taking a house there, and asked him about the residents.