THE INCONVENIENCED TRAVELLER'S PHRASE-BOOK.
(To be Translated into every Language.)
An Incident en Route.
Why, although I telegraphed for rooms, am I told at three in the morning that there is no better accommodation for me than this stable?
Why do you threaten me with the police-station for protesting?
Why do you take me by the throat and drag me along when I am offering no resistance?
Why do you put me in a cell when I had ordered an apparently now occupied bed-chamber at the hotel?
Why do you refuse me a mattress, and take away the plank bedstead with which this dungeon is solely furnished?
Why may I not see a solicitor?
Why do you refuse to send for the British Consul when I tell you that my cousin's maiden aunt is engaged to a Bishop?
What more can I do to prove my respectability when I have shown you my certificate of birth, my commission in the Militia, my banker's pass-book, my diploma as an utter-barrister, several framed and illuminated addresses of congratulation, and my passport?
Why, although I have offered to pay for it, can I not have a decent breakfast?
Why do you insist upon my making a nauseous meal on stale bread and unfiltered water?
Why should you refuse me pens, ink, and paper?
Why should I not write to the Editor of the Times?
Why should you take away my watch, and put me in a practising-ground amidst drunkards, forgers, and burglars?
Why should you not believe me when I assure you that it is a mistake when you fancy I have come to sketch the outworks of the frontier fortress?
Why should you not credit my assertion that I only procured a circular ticket because I wanted to see foreign parts and taste foreign cookery?
Why, after all this worry and anxiety, should you mumble something about "misapprehension," and bundle me out without an apology?
The Runner Nuisance.—"T. L.," writing to The Times about the nuisance of "cab-runners" in the London streets, says, "a stream that cannot be dammed can be turned." But this stream of "cab-runners" is being daily and hourly so treated, of course only by male occupants of cabs carrying luggage, and the runners take nothing but "damnum et injuriam" for their pains. But when the travellers with impedimenta are ladies or ladies' maids, and nurses with children, then evidently this objectionable stream cannot be "dammed" unless the butler or a stalwart footman be at home to receive Mesdames les voyageuses. In these cases, Eve travelling ought to have Adam handy.
WHAT BROWN HAS TO PUT UP WITH.
The Throat Doctor. "And does your little Boy ever Snore, Mrs. Brown?"
Mrs. Brown. "I don't think so. He always sleeps in our Room, and we've never noticed it!"
Little Brown. "Mammy Snores—if you like!"