I got on board the train, a porter banged-to the door so quickly that my coat-tails were embraced between the hinges; the guard said "all right," though it wasn't all right; the whistle shrieked, the engine puffed, the wheels went round with a groan and a grunt, and presently we were rattling over the bridge that spans the romantic Dee, with the white walls of the Granite City glimmering in the moonlight far behind us. After extricating my imprisoned garment, I leant over the window, and began to feel very dull and sentimental. I positively think I would have wept a little, had not the wind just then blown the smoke in my face, causing me to put up the window in disgust. I had a whole first-class compartment to myself, so I determined to make the best of it. Impressed with this idea, I exchanged my hat for a Glengarry, made a pillow of my rug, a blanket of my plaid, and laid me down to sleep--"perchance to dream." Being rather melancholy, I endeavoured to lull myself to slumber by humming such cheering airs as `Kathleen: Mavourneen,' `Home, sweet home,' etc--"a vera judeecious arrangement," had it continued. Unfortunately for my peace of mind it did not; for, although the night train to London does not stop more than half-a-dozen times all the way, at the next station, and before my eyes had closed in sleep, the door of the compartment was opened, a lady was bundled in, the guard said "all right" again, though I could have sworn it wasn't, and the train, like the leg of the wonderful merchant of Rotterdam, "got up and went on as before." Now, I'm not in the habit of being alarmed at the presence of ladies--no British sailor is--still, on the present occasion, as I peered round the corner of my plaid, and beheld a creature of youth and beauty, I _did_ feel a little squeamish; "for," I reasoned, "if she happens to be good, `all right,' as the guard said, but if not then all decidedly wrong; for why? she might take it into her head, between here and London, to swear that I had been guilty of manslaughter, or suicide, or goodness knows what, and then I feared my certificate of virtue, which I got from the best of aged Scottish divines, might not save me." I looked again and again from below my Highland plaid. "Well," thought I, "she seems mild enough, any how;" so I pretended to sleep, but then, gallantry forbade. "I may sleep in earnest," said I to myself, "and by George I don't like the idea of sleeping in the company of any strange lady."