"Nothing," he thought, "shows people up like travelling." The carriage was almost full, and, putting his bag, up in the rack, he took his seat.

At the moment of starting yet another passenger, a girl with a pale face, scrambled in.
"I was a fool to go third," thought Shelton, taking in his neighbours from behind his journal.
They were seven.

A grizzled rustic sat in the far corner; his empty pipe, bowl downwards, jutted like a handle from his face, all bleared with the smear of nothingness that grows on those who pass their lives in the current of hard facts.

Next to him, a ruddy, heavy-shouldered man was discussing with a grey-haired, hatchet-visaged person the condition of their gardens; and Shelton watched their eyes till it occurred to him how curious a look was in them--a watchful friendliness, an allied distrust--and that their voices, cheerful, even jovial, seemed to be cautious all the time.

His glance strayed off, and almost rebounded from the semi-Roman, slightly cross, and wholly self-complacent face of a stout lady in a black-and-white costume, who was reading the Strand Magazine, while her other, sleek, plump hand, freed from its black glove, and ornamented with a thick watch-bracelet, rested on her lap.