at a brisk pace to
catch the late train from Gravesend. It was a long walk and a pleasant
one, though the bag was uncomfortably heavy. I thought, with grim
amusement, of Grayson's gang of footpads. It would be a quaint
situation if I encountered some of them and was robbed of my bag. The
possibilities that the idea opened out were highly diverting and kept me
entertained until I at last reached Gravesend Station and was bundled by
the guard into a first-class compartment just as the train was starting.
I should have preferred an empty compartment, but there was no choice;
and as three of the corners were occupied, I took possession of the
fourth. The rack over my seat was occupied by a bag about the size of my
own, apparently the property of a clergyman who sat in the opposite
corner, so I had to place my bag in the rack over _his_ head.

"I watched him during the journey as he sat opposite me reading the
_Church Times_ and wondered how he would feel if he knew what was in the
bag above him. Probably he would have been quite disturbed; for many of
these clerics entertain the quaintest of old-world ideas. And he was
mighty near to knowing, too; for when the train had stopped at Hither
Green and was just about to move off, he suddenly sprang up,
exclaiming, 'God bless my soul!' and snatching my bag from the rack,
darted out on the platform. I immediately grabbed his bag from my rack
and rushed out after him as the train started, hailing him to stop. 'Hi!
My good sir! You've taken my bag.'

"'Not at all,' he replied indignantly. 'You're quite mistaken.' And
then, as I held out his own bag, he looked from one to the other, and,
to my horror, pressed the clasp of my bag and pulled it wide open.

"On what small chances do great events turn! But for the brown paper in
my bag, there would have been a catastrophe. As it was, when his eye
lighted on that rough, globular paper parcel he handed me my bag with an
apologetic smirk and received his own in exchange. But after that, I
kept my property in my hand until I was safe within the precincts of my
laboratory.

"The usual disappointment awaited me when I came to examine the hair and
finger-prints. He was not the man whom I sought. But he made an
acceptable addition to the Series of Criminal Anthropology in my
museum, for I duly collected the bones from the great nettle-bed in the
chalk-pit early in the following September, and set them, properly
bleached and riveted together,