He told me, as he sat smoking, looking like a waxwork figure, how several years ago he awoke in the dead of the night to find something he could not understand on his pillow.

He roused his wife, lit the gas, dashed cold water on his face to help him to realize what had happened and washed off all the rest of his hair, even to eyebrows and eyelashes.

That was a depressing story to me.

And I soon met a lady (the Mayor's wife) who had suffered exactly in the same way.

She also was resigned, as indeed she had to be.