"Pardon me," I said, "I inquired if you had any objection to my smoking."
"Are you a German?" he repeated almost fiercely, his eyes flashing.
"I fail to see what business it is of yours what my nationality may be."
"It is my business, and I insist on your answering my question," he shouted, dropping the orange in his anger.
"And I decline to answer it," I said quietly.
Now he fairly raged. There is nothing which so provokes a man of hasty temper, with whom you may be in a controversy, as to preserve a tranquil, self-possessed demeanour. Ladies who nag their husbands are aware of this interesting feature in household ethics.
"Ah, you are a German!" he yelled. "You are a Prussian. I will not sit in the same compartment with you'!" and he stood up, and danced, and went through a round of epileptic gesticulation.
"Your absence will not leave me inconsolable," said I, in soft, sweet accents, ceremoniously lifting my hat.
He bounced out of the carriage like a maniac, stamped along the platform, muttering with incoherent vehemence as he went, and presently reappeared with a gendarme, whom he informed that he suspected I was a Prussian spy. Interrogated, he could advance no proof beyond his own suspicions, my arrogant coolness of manner, and my hesitation in returning a straightforward reply.
"I am sure he is," he concluded, "for he all but admitted it."