The doctor returned home, his imagination occupied with the vision of a train rushing at express speed over the metals, and of a compartment in the train in which a young man reclined under the spell of an old man. The young man's face he saw clearly, but the old man's evaded him like a dream, and yet he felt he ought to know one who knew the peculiar repute of the St. James's Hospital. Next day the young man told his story, which was in effect as follows: He was a subaltern in a dragoon regiment stationed in Brighton. On Sunday afternoon he had set out for London on several days' leave. He had taken a seat in a smoking-carriage, and was preparing to make himself comfortable with a novel and a cigar, when an elderly gentleman, who looked like a foreigner, came in as the train was about to move. He particularly observed the man from the first, because, though it was a pleasant spring day, he looked pinched and shrunken with cold in his great fur overcoat, and because he had remarked him standing on the platform and scrutinizing the passengers hurrying into the train. The gentleman sat down in the seat opposite the young officer, and drew his fur wrap close about him. The young officer could not keep his eyes off him, and he noted that his features seemed worn thin and arid, as by passage through terrific peril,--as if he had been travelling for many days without sleep and without food, straining forward to a goal of safety, sick both in stomach and heart,--as if he had been rushing, like the maniac of the Gospel, through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. His hair, which should have been black, looked lustreless and bleached, and his skin seemed as if his blood had lost all colour and generosity, as if nothing but serum flowed in his veins. His eyes alone did not look bloodless; they were weary and extravasated, as from anxious watching. The young officer's compassion went out to the stranger; for he thought he must be a conspirator, fleeing probably from the infamous tyranny of Russian rule. But presently he spoke in such good English that the idea of his being a Russian faded away. "Excuse the liberty I take," said he, with a singularly winning smile; "but let me advise you not to smoke that cigar. I have a peculiarly sensitive nose for tobacco, and my nose informs me that your cigar, though good as cigars go, is not fit for you to smoke." The young officer was surprised that he was rather charmed than offended by this impertinence. "Let me offer you one of these instead," said the strange gentleman; "we call them--I won't trouble you with the Spanish name--but in English it means 'Joys of Spain.'" The officer took and thanked him for a "Joy of Spain," and found the flavour and aroma so excellent that, to use his own phrase, he could have eaten it. He asked the stranger what in particular was his objection to the other cigar.