'Not bad for you,' Nevill rejoined, with an exaggerated air of a connoisseur. 'Not bad for you. Well, Osborne, let us drop the sledge-hammers, and shake hands. Let us patch up a hollow truce, and await a more favourable opportunity of smashing one another. But to resume that most important subject, how to keep women out of a compartment that is not a smoking one. The best plan I know of is to leave on the seat you intend occupying a bottle of gin, and by its side a small tumbler. I admit the experiment is a bold one, but it is effective.' The train had gradually been gaining in speed, and Nevill had gradually raised his voice to overcome the growing clatter of the wheels. Here he paused for awhile, and then ran on again,-- 'It is marvellous how one becomes accustomed to anything. When I was young I could drown the row of a car. Now I can talk eighteen hours end on in a carriage flying at express rate, and never hurt my throat a bit. It is a wonder Darwin took no notice of this. I think I'll suggest to him to write a chapter, and call it "The Survival of the Shrillest." A hurricane on land, or a storm at sea, is nothing to talk through. But I confess I was once hurt--deeply hurt. I was taken by a friend to see the printing of a London morning paper. When we got to the machine-room there were eight machines all going at the one time. Such a clash and row I never heard near me before. I had been talking to the friend who was with me until then. There I stopped. I tried twice to make him hear, and failed. I looked round, and saw two men leaning against one of the machines. One was telling the other a long story. Every now and then they both laughed immoderately. I felt degraded to think I could not make myself heard, when these men were talking with as much ease as I am now to you.' There was a general laugh. Even George could not resist the humour of hearing this man gravely saying he was talking with ease, while his voice was raised to a shrill cry, and the great forked vein of his forehead stood out black upon the plain of his flushed swarthy skin! He joined in the laugh himself after a moment. 'Never mind,' he cried gaily; 'I haven't had an hour of it yet; and I am game to go on for fourteen hours more, I lay the odds.' No one seemed disposed to bet. By this time the noise of the wheels had become so loud, that it was impossible to talk with ease. To the mind of melancholy there is hardly anything more depressing than a railway journey, particularly in winter, through the middle of England. Leafless trees and isolated houses, with now and then a white hamlet, town, or village, are the only objects that break the vast extent of plain. A large stretch of country is under water, and above the surface of the dismal swamp protrude skeleton trees and the tops of fences.