THE ADMIRALTY PIER 249 



nothing to compare with it, as a pier. Plymouth 

 Breakwater is a great deal more impressive, but then, 

 it is not a pier, but is set down in midst of a tempestuous 

 Sound, where no one can get at it without risk and 

 trouble. And the Admiraly Pier owes its very great 

 fame largely to the ease with which you can reach it 

 and promenade up and down its almost interminable 

 pavings. Crowds come to see the boats off or in, and 

 people are always sweeping the seas with telescopes and 

 field-glasses, finding a perennial joy in so doing, 

 difficult to be understood. The boats come in, the 

 tidal trains run out along the huge stone causeway ; 

 passengers pallid and cold, muffled up in overcoats, 

 glancing around with lack-lustre eyes, crawl miserably 

 from the decks and cabins of the Channel steamers 

 under the amused scrutin}^ of the callous crowd, and 

 seat themselves thankfully in the waiting train. 

 Other steamers wait impatiently, shrieking inter- 

 mittently ; and other trains bring down intending 

 passengers for the night crossing to France. Sometimes 

 strange scenes are witnessed on the night mail, when 

 passengers are streaming from the boat-express across 

 the gangways. Quiet gentlemen with little luggage and 

 a marked disinclination for the society of their fellows 

 are discovered, as they lurk in remote corners of the 

 deck, seeking to sneak quietly out of the " very front 

 door of England," by other gentlemen — gentlemen with 

 broad shoulders and square-toed boots — who tap them 

 on the shoulder with an equal absence of fuss or 

 demonstration, and these quiet gentlemen usually say — 

 not without a certain start of surprise, you may be 

 sure — " Oh ! I'll come quietly." Then the three (for 

 they are usually two who thus accost one of these 

 undemonstrative and retiring passengers) step again on 

 to the Admiralty Pier, and apparently abandon their 

 Continental trip, for they go up to London by the 

 next train. Sometimes a quiet gentleman refuses to 

 " come quietly " when his shoulder is tapped, and 

 then those who do the tapping are obliged to resort 



