88 STRAY- AW AYS 



way, but by the time that his black beard ceased to 

 wag directions at me from the window of the train, 

 as it left me on the Altona platform, I had no doubt 

 that violent abuse in English is a more useful and 

 comfortable thing than sympathy tendered in German . 

 It was then half-past ten o'clock. At eleven the 

 situation had been grasped by the Altona officials, 

 one and all of whom accepted the fact of my female 

 he-friend without a stagger. They assured me that 

 all would yet be well; but 11.30 arrived, so did several 

 local trains from Hamburg, and so did not my cousin. 

 I sat in the vast refreshment-room among companies 

 of people who ate and drank heavily; their faces 

 looked paled and nightmarish; they seemed un- 

 countable, and appallingly indifferent to the dilemma, 

 as they flocked in and out. I held on to my dressing- 

 bag as the one link with previous existence, and 

 thought wildly of the English Consul ; of telegraphing 

 I had many times thought, but a threepenny bit 

 does not lend itself to such a purpose. Had an 

 official come in and assured me that I really did not 

 exist in Altona, and that I should presently find myself 

 sleep-walking in Galway, I should have believed him, 

 so little individuality has the ordinary human being 

 when torn from its accustomed surroundings. The 

 official came, but it was to beckon me forth to a private 

 room in the station, where a large, stern man sat before 

 a machine that clicked. He did not speak, but taking 

 from the table strip after strip of paper, began to read 

 along their length in the voice of the ghost in Hamlet. 

 I felt it to be appropriate. In these fateful accents he 

 proclaimed to me my story, told by my cousin at 

 Hamburg, how an English lady, without tickets, 

 money, or German speech, was possibly at Altona, or 

 possibly far on her way to Denmark. I found the 

 description pathetic, and realised that if I had shed 



