’Why, yes,’ Mr. Hodson said, in answer to the question, ’you might get me a bottle of soda-water when we get to the station.’ ’I have soda-water in the car, sir.’ ’Bring me a bottle, then, please.’ ’And shall I get anything else for you, sir, at Rugby?’ ’No, I thank you.’ When the man returned with the soda-water, the traveller had taken from his dressing-bag a bottle labelled ’Bromide of Potassium’ and he was just about to mix his customary sleeping-draught when it occurred to him that perhaps this conductor could tell him something of the new and far country into which he was about to adventure for the first time. And in making these inquiries he showed that he was just as frank-spoken about his own plans and circumstances as he expected other people to be about theirs. When the conductor confessed that he knew next to nothing about the north of Scotland, never having been farther than Perth, and even then his knowledge of the country being confined to the railway-line and the stations, Mr. Hodson went on to say—in that methodical way of his, with little rising inflexions here and there— ’Well, it’s bound to be different from London, anyway. It can’t be like London; and that’s the main thing for me. Why, that London fog, never moving, same in the morning, same at night, it’s just too dismal for anything; the inside of a jail is a fool to it. ’Pears to me that a London afternoon is just about as melancholy as they make it; if there’s anything more melancholy than that anywhere, I don’t know it. Well, now, it can’t be like that at Cape Wrath.’ ’I should think not, sir.’ ’I daresay if I lived in the town, and had my club, and knew people, it might be different; and my daughter seems to get through the time well enough; but young folks are easily amused. Say, now, about this salmon fishing in the north: you don’t know when it begins?’ ’No, sir.’ ’You haven’t seen anybody going yet with a bundle of rods?’ ’No, sir, not this year yet.’ ’Hope they haven’t been playing it on me—I was told I could begin on the eleventh. But it don’t signify much so long’s I get out of that infernal cut-throat atmosphere of London.’ At this point the train began to slow into Rugby station, and the conductor left to attend to his duties; and by the time they were moving out again and on their way to the far north, Mr. Hodson had mixed and drunk his nightly potion, and, partially undressed, was wrapped up in the thick and warm coverings of the sleeping-berth, where, whether owing to the bromide of potassium, or the jog-trot rattle of the wheels, he was soon plunged in a profound slumber.