s in his hand,
which--they appeared so to absorb him--might have been his own.

"'I do not wish to threaten you, young lady,' he resumed, 'and I think,
besides, that I can trust your kind face. Will you promise me not to
reveal this metamorphosis until your journey's end?'

"'I will,' said I, 'most certainly.'

"At Reading, the guard and a person in plain clothes looked into our
carriage.

"'You have the ticket, my love,' said the young man, blandly, and looking
to me as though he were my father.

"'Never mind, sir; we don't want them,' said the official, as he withdrew
his companion.

"'I shall now leave you, madam,' observed my fellow-traveller, as soon as
the coast was clear; 'by your kind and courageous conduct you have saved
my life and, perhaps, even your own.'

"In another minute he was gone, and the train was in motion. Not till
the next morning did I learn from the _Times_ newspaper that the
gentleman on whom I had operated as hair cutter had committed a forgery
to an enormous amount, in London, a few hours before I met him, and that
he had been tracked into the express train from Paddington; but
that--although the telegraph had been put in motion and described him
accurately--at Reading, when the train was searched, he was nowhere to be
found."

SAFETY ON THE FLOOR.

Many concussions give no warning of their approach, while others do, the
usual premonitory symptoms being a kind of bouncing or leaping of the
train. It is well to know that the bottom of the carriage is the safest
place, and, therefore, when a person has reason to anticipate a
concussion, he should, without hesitation, throw himself on the floor of
the carriage. It was by this means that Lord Guillamore saved his life
and that of his fellow passengers some years since, when a concussion
took place on one of the Irish railways. His Lordship feeling a shock,
which he knew to be the forerunner of a concussion, without more ado
sprang upon the two persons sitting opposite to him, and dragged them
with him to the bottom of the carriage; the astonished persons at first
imagined that they had been set upon by a maniac, and commenced
struggling for their liberty, but in a few seconds they but too well
understood the nature of the case; the concussion came, and the upper
part of the carriage in which Lord Guillamore and the other two persons
were was shattered to pieces, while the floor was untouched, and thus
left them lying in s