THE boat-train had disgorged its passengers, who had huddled together in a crowd round the luggage as it was dragged out of the vans, and then had jostled their way out into the London they had been so long approaching. When the crowd scattered it left like a deposit a little knot of strange-looking people in brilliant clothes who stared about them pathetically and helplessly. There were three old men who seemed to be strangers to each other and a handsome Jewess with her family--two girls and three boys. The two elder boys carried on their backs the family bedding, and the youngest clung to his mother's skirts and was frightened by the noise, the hurrying crowds of people, the vastness and the ugly, complicated angular lines of the station. The woman looked disappointed and hurt. Her eyes searched through the crowds, through every fresh stream of people. She was baffled and anxious. Once or twice she was accosted, but she could not understand a word of what was said to her. At last she produced a piece of paper and showed it to a railway official, who came up thinking it was time these outlandish folk moved on. He could not read what was written on it, for the paper was very dirty and the characters were crabbed and awkwardly written. He turned to the old men, one of whom said excitedly the only English words he knew--"London--Jewish--Society." The official looked relieved. These people did not look like Jews, and the eldest girl and the little boy were lovely. He went away, and the woman, whose hopes had risen, once more looked disconsolate. The little boy buried his face in her apron and wept. A suburban train came wheezing into the platform, which was at once alive with hurrying men in silk hats and tail-coats. Catching sight of the brilliantly attired group, the handsome woman and the lovely girl, the boys with their heads bowed beneath the billowing piles of feather bedding, some of them stopped. The little boy looked up with tears in his eyes. One man put his hand in his pocket and threw down a few coppers. Others followed his example, and the little boy ran after the showering pennies as they bounced in the air, and rolled, span, and settled. He danced from penny to penny and a crowd gathered; for, in his bright jerkin and breeches and little top-boots, dancing like a sprite, gay and wild, he was an astonishing figure to find in the grime and ugliness of the station. Silver was thrown among the pennies to keep him dancing, but at last he was exhausted and ran to his mother with his fists full of money, and the men hurried on to their offices. The official returned with an interpreter, who discovered that the woman's name was Kühler, that she had expected to be met by her husband, that she had come from Austrian Poland, and that the address written on the piece of paper was Gun Street. The number was indecipherable.