"Precisely; and you are a journalist--call yourself one, at least--and it should be part of your business to notice and describe people.

I don't mean only the wonderful personage with the clear Saxon features, the fine blue eyes, the noble brow and classic face, but the ordinary person--the person who represents ninety out of every hundred of his own kind--the average Englishman, say, of the middle classes, who is neither very tall nor very short, who wears a moustache which is neither fair nor dark, but which masks his mouth, and a top hat which hides the shape of his head and brow, a man, in fact, who dresses like hundreds of his fellow-creatures, moves like them, speaks like them, has no peculiarity.
"Try to describe _him_, to recognize him, say a week hence, among his other eighty-nine doubles; worse still, to swear his life away, if he happened to be implicated in some crime, wherein _your_ recognition of him would place the halter round his neck.
"Try that, I say, and having utterly failed you will more readily understand how one of the greatest scoundrels unhung is still at large, and why the mystery on the Underground Railway was never cleared up.
"I think it was the only time in my life that I was seriously tempted to give the police the benefit of my own views upon the matter.

You see, though I admire the brute for his cleverness, I did not see that his being unpunished could possibly benefit any one.
"In these days of tubes and motor traction of all kinds, the old-fashioned 'best, cheapest, and quickest route to City and West End' is often deserted, and the good old Metropolitan Railway carriages cannot at any time be said to be overcrowded.

Anyway, when that particular train steamed into Aldgate at about 4 p.m.on March 18th last, the first-class carriages were all but empty.
"The guard marched up and down the platform looking into all the carriages to see if anyone had left a halfpenny evening paper behind for him, and opening the door of one of the first-class compartments, he noticed a lady sitting in the further corner, with her head turned away towards the window, evidently oblivious of the fact that on this line Aldgate is the terminal station.
"'Where are you for, lady ?' he said.
"The lady did not move, and the guard stepped into the carriage, thinking that perhaps the lady was asleep.

He touched her arm lightly and looked into her face.