CHAPTER XL.
"Seems to me that you are nudging a fellow for his ticket every five minutes," said a lantern-jawed looking individual to the railroad conductor, as he roused himself from his nap, and pulled a bit of red pasteboard from his hat-band. "I feel as if my gastronomic region had been scooped out, and rubbed dry with a crash-towel; how long before we stop, hey?"
"Buy some books, sir?" said a young itinerant bookseller to our hungry traveler.
"Have you the 'True guide for travelers to preserve their temper?'" said our friend to the urchin.
The boy looked anxiously over the titles of his little library, and replied, with a shake of the head, "No, sir, I never heard of it."
"Nor I either," responded the hungry growler; "so get about your business; the best book that was ever written can neither be ate nor drank; I'd give a whole library for a glass of brandy and water this minute," and the unhappy man folded his arms over his waistband, and doubled himself up like a hedgehog in the corner.
"I am always sure to get a seat on the sunny side of the cars, and next to an Irish woman," muttered a young lady. "I wonder do the Irish never feed on any thing but rum and onions?"
"Very uncomfortable, these seats," muttered a gentleman who had tried all sorts of positions to accommodate his vertebræ; "the corporation really should attend to it. I will write an article about it in my paper, as soon as I reach home. I will annihilate the whole concern; they ought to remember that editors occasionally travel, and remember which side their bread is buttered. Shade of Franklin! how my bones ache; they shall hear of this in 'The Weekly Scimeter.' It is a downright imposition."
In fact, every body was cross; every body was hungry and begrimed with dust; every body was ready to explode at the next feather's weight of annoyance.
Not every body; there was one dear little girl who found sunshine even there, and ran about extracting honey from what to others were only bitter herbs. Holding on by the seats, she passed up and down the narrow avenue between the benches, peeping with the brightest smile in the world into the faces of the cross passengers, drinking from the little tin-cup at the water-tank, clapping her hands at the sound of the whistle, and touching the sleeve even of the hedgehog gentleman rolled up in the corner. The child's mother sat on the back seat, looking after her as kindly as she was able; but, poor thing, traveling made her sick, and she held her camphor-bottle to her nostrils, and leaned gasping against the window-sill to catch every stray breath of air.