However, it was all past, long ago, when I
recognized Melford in the smoking-room that night: it must have been ten
or a dozen years. I was wearing a full beard then, and so was he; we
wore as much beard as we could in those days. I had been through the
war since college, and he had been in California, most of the time, and,
as he told me, he had been up north, in Alaska, just after we bought it,
and hurt his eyes--had snow-blindness--and he wore spectacles. In fact,
I had to do most of the recognizing, but after we found out who we were
we were rather comfortable; and I liked him better than I remembered to
have liked him in our college days. I don't suppose there was ever much
harm in him; it was only my grudge about his nightmare. We talked along
and smoked along for about an hour, and I could hear the porter outside,
making up the berths, and the train rumbled away towards Framingham, and
then towards Worcester, and I began to be sleepy, and to think I would
go to bed myself; and just then the door of the smoking-room opened, and
a young girl put in her face a moment, and said: 'Oh, I beg your pardon.
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