nger in
a compartment of an English train, and I admit now that I was as yet
ignorant of the proper method of conduct. Later on I became fully
conversant with the rule of travel as understood in England. I should
have known, of course, that I must on no account speak to the man. But I
should have let down the window a little bit in such a way as to make a
strong draught on his ear. Had this failed to break down his reserve I
should have placed a heavy valise in the rack over his head so balanced
that it might fall on him at any moment. Failing this again, I could
have blown rings of smoke at him or stepped on his feet under the
pretence of looking out of the window. Under the English rule as long as
he bears this in silence you are not supposed to know him. In fact, he
is not supposed to be there. You and he each presume the other to be a
mere piece of empty space. But let him once be driven to say, "Oh, I beg
your pardon, I wonder if you would mind my closing the window," and he
is lost. After that you are entitled to tell him anything about the corn
crop that you care to.

But in the present case I knew nothing of this, and after three hours of
charming silence I found myself in London.

II. I Am Interviewed by the Press

IMMEDIATELY upon my arrival in London I was interviewed by the Press. I
was interviewed in all twenty times. I am not saying this in any
spirit of elation or boastfulness. I am simply stating it as a
fact--interviewed twenty times, sixteen times by men and twice by women.
But as I feel that the results of these interviews were not all that I
could have wished, I think it well to make some public explanation of
what happened.

The truth is that we do this thing so differently over in America that I
was for the time being completely thrown off my bearings. The questions
that I had every right to expect after many years of American and
Canadian interviews failed to appear.

I pass over the fact that being interviewed for five hours is a
fatiguing process. I lay no claim to exemption for that. But to that no
doubt was due the singular discrepancies as to my physical appearance
which I detected in the London papers.

The young man who interviewed me immediately after breakfast described
me as "a brisk, energetic man, still on the right side of forty, with
energy in every movement."

The lady who wrote me up at 11.30 reported that my hair was turning
grey, and that there was "a peculiar lang