In the first place I had to go without Philip. He was to have gone with me. And, of course, I had looked forward to our journey together in the train. But, at the last moment, he telegraphed to say that business detained him in town; would I go down without him, and he would join us on the morrow. I went without him. And, on the whole, I think I bore up very well. Especially considering that, just as the train was starting from Paddington, a woman got into my carriage with two dogs, a parrot in a huge cage, bundles of golf clubs, hockey clubs, tennis rackets, fishing rods, and goodness only knows what besides; her belongings filled the whole of her own side of the compartment, and most of mine. The last of them was being hustled in as the train was actually moving. As she was depositing them anywhere, and anyhow--I never saw anyone treat her belongings with scantier ceremony--she observed,-- "I cut that rather fine. Don't believe in getting to the station before the train is ready to start--but that was a bit of a shave." It was a "bit of a shave"; the marvel was that she succeeded in catching the train at all. I--disliking to be bustled--had been there a good twenty minutes before it started, so--although she might not have been aware of it--there was a flavour of something about her remark which was very nearly personal. It was only after we had gone some distance that the dogs appeared--not a little to my amazement. One of them--which came out of a brown leather hand-bag--was one of those long-bodied, short-legged creatures, which always look as if they were deformed. The other, a small black animal with curly hair, she took out of the pocket of the capacious coat which she was wearing. Directly she placed it on the floor of the carriage it flew at me, as if filled with a frenzied desire to tear me to pieces. While it was doing its best to bark itself hoarse, its owner removed a green cover from the parrot's cage; whereupon the bird inside commenced to make a noise upon its own account, as if with the express intention of urging that sooty fragment to wilder exertions. That compartment was like a miniature pandemonium. "Don't let them worry you," remarked the mistress of the travelling menagerie. But as she made not the slightest attempt to stop their worrying me, I did not quite understand what she expected I was going to do. When the black dog got the hem of my skirt into its mouth, and began to pull at it with its tiny teeth, I did remonstrate. "I am afraid your dog will tear my dress." "Not she! It's only her fun; she won't hurt you."