At that moment the engine hooted, the trucks gave a preliminary buck and started to jolt forward. The Italian sprang upon the running board and, clinging to the hand-rail, continued to declaim emotionally through the window. William became alarmed. "This chap has something on his mind. Perhaps he's trying to tell us that a bridge has blown up, or that the train is moving without a movement order, or the chauffeur is drunk. For Heaven's sake somebody do something--quick!" Thereupon Babel broke loose, each of us in his panic blazing off in the foreign language which came easiest to his tongue. William called for a bath in Arabic. The Babe demanded champagne in French. Albert Edward declined _mensa_, while I, by the luckiest chance, struck a language which the Italian recognised with a glad yelp. In a moment explanations were over and I had swung him into the carriage and slammed the door. The new-comer was a lieutenant of mountain artillery. He was returning from leave, had confided himself to the care of a Railway Transport Officer, had in consequence missed every regular train and wanted a lift to the next junction. That was all. I then set about to make him as comfortable as possible, wrapping him in one of the Babe's blankets and giving him his maiden drink of whisky out of William's First Field Dressing. With tears streaming down his cheeks he vented his admiration of the British national beverage. In return he introduced me to the Italian national smoke, an endless cigar to be sucked up through a straw. Between violent spasms I implored the name and address of the maker. We were both very perfect gentlemen. We then prattled about the War; he boasting about the terrific depths of snow in which he did his battling, while I boasted about the Flanders mud. We broke about even on that bout. He gained a bit on mountain batteries, but I got it all back, and more, on tanks. He had never seen one, so I had it all my own way. Our tanks, after I had finished with them, could do pretty nearly anything except knit. Defeated in the field, he turned home to Rome for something to boast about. I should see St. Peter's, he said. It was magnificent, and the Roman art treasures unsurpassable. I replied that our cathedral at Westminster was far newer, and that the art in our National Cold Storage had cost an average of £5473 19s. 154d. per square foot. Could he beat it? That knocked him out of his stride for a moment, but he struggled back with some remark about seeing his Coliseum by moonlight. I replied that at ours we had modern electric light, Murphy and Mack, Vesta Tilley and the Bioscope. Whether he would have recovered from that I know not, for at this moment the lights of the junction twinkled in at the frosted windows and he took his departure, first promising to call in at our Mess and suffer some more whisky if in return I would crawl up his mountain and meet the chamois and edelweiss.