He hoisted Paul up the high footboard to an empty compartment, and shut the door, leaving him to sink down on the luxurious cushions in speechless and measureless content. But Tommy had hardly done so before he reappeared and looked in. "I say," he suggested, "if I was you, I'd get under the seat before you gets to Dufferton, otherways your guv'nor'll be spottin' you. I'll lock you in." "I'll get under now; some one might see me here," said Paul; and, too anxious for safety to thank his preserver, he crawled under the low, blue-cushioned seat, which left just room enough for him to lie there in a very cramped and uncomfortable position. Still he need not stay there after the train had once started, except for five minutes or so at Dufferton. Unfortunately he had not been long under the seat before he heard two loud imperious voices just outside the carriage door. "Porter! guard! Hi, somebody! open this door, will you; it's locked." "This way, sir," he heard Tommy's voice say outside. "Plenty of room higher up." "I don't want to go higher up. I'll go here. Just open it at once, I tell you." The door was opened reluctantly, and two middle-aged men came in. "Always take the middle carriage of a train," said the first. "Safest in any accident, y'know. Never heard of a middle carriage of a train getting smashed up, to speak of." The other sat heavily down just over Paul, with a comfortable grunt, and the train started, Paul feeling naturally annoyed by this intrusion, as it compelled him to remain in seclusion for the whole of the journey. "Still," he thought, "it is lucky that I had time to get under here before they came in; it would have seemed odd if I had done it afterwards." And he resigned himself to listen to the conversation which followed. "What was it we were talking about just now?" began the first. "Let me see. Ah! I remember. Yes; it was a very painful thing--very, indeed, I assure you." There is a certain peculiar and uncomfortable suspicion that attacks most of us at times, which cannot fairly be set down wholly to self-consciousness or an exaggerated idea of our own importance. I mean the suspicion that a partly-heard conversation must have ourselves for its subject. More often than not, of course, it proves utterly unfounded, but once in a way, like most presentiments, it finds itself unpleasantly fulfilled. Mr. Bultitude, though he failed to recognise either of the voices, was somehow persuaded that the conversation had something to do with himself, and listened with eager attention. "Yes," the speaker continued; "he was never, according to what I hear, a man of any extraordinary capacity, but he was always spoken of as a man of standing in the City, doing a safe business, not a risky one, and so on, you know. So, of course, his manner, when I called, shocked me all the more." "Ah!" said the other. "Was he violent or insulting, then?"