CHAPTER XXVI.
Peculiarities of Travelers.
NEXT morning I took an early train for Wheeling, which city I desired to visit on my westward way.
On this occasion, about twelve minutes before the train started, two men came in, and, desiring to sit together and finding no seat wholly vacant, one of them had the incredible, the unparalleled, the unexampled, the unheard-of audacity to ask me to move and sit with another person—a thing I have refused to do even to accommodate a lady. It was not yet quite light in the car, as the sun was not up, and I pointed to my crutch, that stood leaning against the back of the seat in front of me, and stated that I had been badly shot in the knee the previous night, in a saloon difficulty, and that it was impossible for me to move with any sort of comfort or ease. Moreover, I observed, that my uncle was to accompany me on my journey, to take care of me, that he would of course occupy the seat with me, and that he had just gone to a neighboring saloon to get me a glass of ale and hand it in at the window. Otherwise, I said, I should accommodate them by moving to any part of the car they might desire, and take pleasure in it.
Taking all I said for the truth,—and thus making a wholesale mistake—they turned and went to the rear end of the car, where they urgently requested a respectable-looking negro passenger to get up and let them have his seat. But he knew his rights, and, knowing, durst maintain; and he maintained them after this manner:
“Guess not.”
“O, come, now,” argued one of the two passengers; “you might as well. You’ll be just as comfortable some——”
“Well, now, I guess I won’t leab dis yer, by golly!”
“You might have to,” suggested one of the Caucasians.
“Hab to? Like to see de man——”
“For half-a-cent I’d move you!”