He woke, refreshed, made a leisurely toilette and wandered forth in search of breakfast. In the Restaurant Car he announced his nationality by demanding eggs with his cafe au lait; then settled down to the long day's journey, thankful now for the full steam heat as they mounted steadily toward the Alps and plunged with a shrill whistle into the tunnel. On and on, with tantalizing peeps of the Mont Cenis Pass. The hoar frost without traced fairy patterns on the window-pane. The wind roared past them but the sun shone bright on snow-clad peaks and valleys dazzling white. Through Turin, with its broad blue river twisting like a serpent round her ancient walls, on and on, now heading South, as the snow vanished swiftly and the plains spread about them. McTaggart grew restless. He paced up and down the narrow corridor, smoking innumerable cigarettes as the light slowly faded away from the sky. Genoa! He drew a breath of relief and barricaded himself again in his coupe. A swarm of passengers besieged the train and he let the window down, amused at the sight. Boys were selling oranges and glasses of "sirops," Bologna sausages and lurid papers. Then the train moved out and the salt smell of the sea tempted him to search in vain through the dark. The Mediterranean. He remembered, with a smile, it had stood for a test of spelling at school! Once he thought he saw a faint dark line; then it vanished into the night. He began to feel drowsy after his dinner. This would never do! He marched up and down, conscious he had to change at Pisa--then at Empoli. He yawned, stiff and tired. After what seemed an interminable spell, with a grisly noise of brakes, they slackened speed. "Pisa ... Pi-sa ...!" He gathered up his rug and descended the steep step on to the platform. His train puffed out. He felt, suddenly, as if he had parted with his only friend, as he stood there waiting for the Florence express, stamping his feet, in the bitter cold. "If this is the South..." he said to himself--"Give me London!" He turned up his collar, straining his eyes through the vaulted tunnel of the long station into the dark. Great lamps flaring like hungry eyes and in she roared with her high-built engine, spiteful, frost-rimmed, spitting steam ... McTaggart found a seat in a crowded carriage. Then on again through this endless night and Empoli, a God-forsaken spot, quite unscreened from the icy blast, with twenty frozen minutes to wait. At last a faint streak of golden smoke rewarded his patience. "Siena--Siena," a hoarse voice shouted. He made for the nearest door labelled First Class and clambered in, finding a single occupant. An old man with a white imperial, the soft black felt beloved of Italy, a thick coat with a wolf-skin collar and a lawyer's portfolio across his knees. He raised the aforementioned hat courteously. "Fa freddo," he said in a musical voice.