I went out hurriedly, forgetting to assist him, and limping painfully, he followed me to the porch, and called after me as I ran down into the street. Looking back, as I turned the corner, I saw him getting with difficulty into his buggy, which waited beside the curbing, and it seemed to me that his great bulky figure, in his fur-lined overcoat, was unreal and intangible like the images that one sees in sleep. The train was about to pull out as I entered the station, and swinging on to the rear coach, I settled myself into the first chair I came to, which happened to be directly behind the shining bald head and red neck of a man I knew. As I shrank back, he turned, caught sight of me, and held out his hand with an easy air of good-fellowship. "So General Bolingbroke has retired from the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad, I hear," he remarked. "Well, there's a big job waiting for somebody, but he'll have to be a big man to fit it." A sudden ridiculous annoyance took possession of me; the General, the South Midland Railroad, and the bald-headed man before me, all appeared to enter my consciousness like small, stinging gnats that swarmed about larger bodies. What was the railroad to me, if I had lost Sally? Had I lost her? Was it possible to win her again? "I am in trouble," the words whirled in my thoughts, "and as I do not wish to disturb you at this time, I have gone off for a few days to think it over." Was the trouble associated with George Bolingbroke? Did she mind the gossip? Did she think I should mind it? Whatever it was, why didn't she come to me and weep it out on my breast? "I didn't want to disturb you at this time." At this time? That was because of the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad. "Damn the South Midland and Atlantic Railroad!" I said again under my breath. The red neck of the bald-headed man in front of me suddenly turned. "Going down for a little hunting?" he enquired genially, "there isn't much else, I reckon, to take a man like you down into this half-baked country. I hear the partridges are getting scarce, and they are going to bring a bill into the Legislature forbidding the sending of them outside of the state. Now, that's a direct slap, I say, at the small farmer. A bird is a bird, ain't it, even if it's a Virginia partridge?" I rose and took up my overcoat. "I'll go into the smoking-car. They keep it too hot here." He nodded cheerfully. "I was in there myself, but it's like an oven, too, so I came out." Then he unfolded his newspaper, and I passed hurriedly down the aisle of the coach.