IN THE STATE OF DENMARK 87 



display, and permitted my cousin to go for the luggage 

 with the fat porter, in the interchange of the grosser 

 commonplaces of the language. There was a long 

 delay. I began to be exceedingly sleepy, and then 

 became aware of a very gentle movement on the part 

 of the train. I assumed one of those slight -passages 

 of coquetry with trucks, by means of which trains 

 while away the time, but I was anxious. In a few 

 minutes the train was proceeding at full pace, and I 

 was realising that my cousin was left behind with the 

 tickets in her pocket. I next realised that she had 

 all the money with her, with the exception of a three- 

 penny bit and a halfpenny stamp. After this I 

 remained in a species of swoon, with the dew standing 

 on my brow, and the train rattled apace into the un- 

 known. That there was a second Hamburg station, 

 at which the train paused for a few moments, was 

 almost unnoticed by me. In the absolute collapse of 

 the future one fact remained solid, that to go to Den- 

 mark it was necessary to change at Altona; but for 

 this I should doubtless have burst into insane laughter 

 and jibbering in explaining the position to the other 

 occupant of the carriage, a black-bearded German. In 

 this undertaking the declension of adjectives was not 

 as invaluable as might have been expected. An ad- 

 jective is a showy thing, but without a noun it does not 

 materially advance the conversation ; in fact I would 

 have given away every adjective in the language for 

 a few naked substantives, or for a certainty as to 

 whether wechseln or wachsen was the equivalent of 

 the verb " to change." The German was not amused, 

 not even when I spoke of my cousin as " meine 

 Freundy He explained without emotion that the 

 person described as the female he-friend would follow 

 to Altona, and would have many trains for the purpose. 

 In fact he was sympathetic in his difficult Ollendorfian 



