my hat in the rack
overhead, and tried to appear engrossed in another portion of the paper.
But I could not refrain from darting a look at my fellow-traveller. To
my horror I perceived that the paper he was reading was the same as the
one I had; and that the page between which and myself his eyes were
uncomfortably oscillating was the very page on which the fatal paragraph
appeared.

_I_ was dark, _I_ was pale (after my voyage), and who should say my
manners were not mysterious?

In imagination I stood already in the box of the Old Bailey and heard
myself sentenced to the treadmill, and was unable to offer the slightest
explanation in palliation of my mysterious conduct.

In such agreeable reveries I passed the first hour of the journey; when,
to my unfeigned relief, on reaching Antrim my fellow-traveller quitted
the carriage. No doubt his object was a sinister one, and when I saw
him speak to the constable at the station, I had no doubt in my own mind
that my liberty was not worth five minutes' purchase. But even so,
anything seemed better than his basilisk eye in the corner of the
carriage.

I hastily prepared my defence and resolved on a dignified refusal to
criminate myself under any provocation. What were they doing? To my
horror, the "detective," the constable, the guard, and the station-
master all advanced on my carriage.

"In there?" said the official.

My late fellow-traveller nodded. The station-master opened the door and
entered the carriage. I was in the act of opening my lips to say--

"I surrender myself--there is no occasion for violence," when the
station-master laid his hand on the hat-box.

"It's labelled to C--," he said; "take it along, guard, and put it out
there. He's sure to come on by the next train. Right away there!"

Next moment we were off. What did it all mean? I was not under arrest!
Nobody had noticed me; but McCrane's hat-box had engaged the attention
of four public officials.

"Free and easy way of doing things on this line," said an Englishman in
the carriage; "quite the regular thing for a man and his luggage to go
by different trains. Always turns up right in the end. Are you going
to Derry, sir?" he added addressing me.

"No," said I, hastily. "I'm getting out at the next station."

"What--at --" and he pronounced the name something like "Tobacco."

"Yes," I said, pining for liberty, no matter the name it was called by.

At the next station I got out.