A young lady some years ago thus related an adventure she met with in
travelling. “After I had taken my seat one morning at Paddington, in an
empty carriage, I was joined, just as the train was moving off, by a
strange-looking young man, with remarkably long flowing hair. He was, of
course, a little hurried, but he seemed besides to be so disturbed and
wild that I was quite alarmed, for fear of his not being in his right
mind, nor did his subsequent conduct at all reassure me. Our train was
an express, and he inquired eagerly, at once, which was the first station
we were advertised to stop. I consulted my Bradshaw and furnished him
with the required information. It was Reading. The young man looked at
his watch.
“‘Madam,’ said he, ‘I have but half-an-hour between me and, it may be,
ruin. Excuse, therefore, my abruptness. You have, I perceive, a pair of
scissors in your workbag. Oblige me, if you please, by cutting off all
my hair.’
“‘Sir,’ said I, ‘it is impossible.’
“‘Madam,’ he urged, and a look of severe determination crossed his
features; ‘I am a desperate man. Beware how you refuse me what I ask.
Cut my hair off—short, close to the roots—immediately; and here is a
newspaper to hold the ambrosial curls.’
“I thought he was mad, of course; and believing that it would be
dangerous to thwart him, I cut off all his hair to the last lock.
“‘Now, madam,’ said he, unlocking a small portmanteau, ‘you will further
oblige me by looking out of the window, as I am about to change my
clothes.’
“Of course I looked out of the window for a very considerable time, and
when he observed, ‘Madam, I need no longer put you to any inconvenience,’
I did not recognise the young man in the least.
“Instead of his former rather gay costume, he was attired in black, and
wore a grey wig and silver spectacles; he looked like a respectable
divine of the Church of England, of about sixty-four years of age; to
complete that character, he held a volume of sermons 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.”