‘Ah, that is just it, you see. If they had stuck to their rights and enforced them you wouldn’t be trying to trample mine underfoot in this bland way now. I haven’t any disposition to give you unnecessary trouble, but it is my duty to protect the next man from this kind of imposition. So I must have my car. Otherwise I will wait in Chicago and sue the company for violating its contract.’
‘Sue the company?—for a thing like that!’
‘Certainly.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘Indeed, I do.’
The conductor looked the Major over wonderingly, and then said:
‘It beats me—it’s bran-new—I’ve never struck the mate to it before. But I swear I think you’d do it. Look here, I’ll send for the station-master.’
When the station-master came he was a good deal annoyed—at the Major, not at the person who had made the mistake. He was rather brusque, and took the same position which the conductor had taken in the beginning; but he failed to move the soft-spoken artilleryman, who still insisted that he must have his car. However, it was plain that there was only one strong side in this case, and that that side was the Major’s. The station-master banished his annoyed manner, and became pleasant and even half-apologetic. This made a good opening for a compromise, and the Major made a concession. He said he would give up the engaged state-room, but he must have a state-room. After a deal of ransacking, one was found whose owner was persuadable; he exchanged it for our section, and we got away at last. The conductor called on us in the evening, and was kind and courteous and obliging, and we had a long talk and got to be good friends. He said he wished the public would make trouble oftener—it would have a good effect. He said that the railroads could not be expected to do their whole duty by the traveller unless the traveller would take some interest in the matter himself.
I hoped that we were done reforming for the trip now, but it was not so. In the hotel car, in the morning, the Major called for broiled chicken. The waiter said:
‘It’s not in the bill of fare, sir; we do not serve anything but what is in the bill.’