The special train for Southampton, drawn¹ up against the main-line platform at Waterloo, seemed to have resigned itself with an almost animal passivity to the onslaught of the crowd of well-dressed men and women who were boarding it. From the engine a thin column of steam rose lazily to the angular roof, where a few sparrows fluttered with sudden swoops² and short flights. The engine-driver leaned against the side of the cab, stroking his beard; the stoker was trimming coal on the tender. Those two knew the spectacle by heart: the scattered³ piles of steamer trunks amidst which passengers hurried hither and thither⁴ with no apparent object; the continual purposeless opening and shutting of carriage doors; the deferential⁵ gestures of the glittering guard as he bent⁶ an ear to ladies whose footmen stood respectfully behind them; the swift movements of the bookstall clerk selling papers, and the meditative⁷ look of the bookstall manager as he swept his hand along the shelf of new novels and selected a volume which he could thoroughly⁸ recommend to the customer in the fur coat; the long colloquies⁹ between husbands and wives, sons and mothers, daughters and fathers, fathers and sons, lovers and lovers, punctuated¹⁰ sometimes by the fluttering of a handkerchief, or the placing of a hand on a shoulder; the unconcealed agitation¹¹ of most and the carefully studied calm of a few; the

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