My first impulse was to knock him down. But I bethought myself of the advice that had been given me, and answered, with a smile:
"Yes, I heard. I beg a thousand pardons. You are really too polite."
A popular American actress was dining one evening in the dining-room car of a New York train. Being alone, she ate slowly, and deliberately dawdled over the meal, to kill time. The waiter, displeased at the audacity of such conduct, stood about within hearing, and began making the rudest remarks on her proceedings.
When she had quite finished her dinner, and he came to remove the dishes, the actress wrote a few words upon one of her cards and, handing it to him with a sweet smile, she said:
"Here is my card; if you hand it in at the Opera House to-morrow evening, you will be provided with a stall. I regret exceedingly that it is not in my power to offer you a box—it is such a treat to meet with a polite railway servant!"
I have met, occasionally, with a polite conductor, but they are in the proportion of one to ten.
The names of the stations are hidden. Do not hope that the conductor will clear up the mystery.
The train had just stopped a few leagues from Richmond.
"What station is this?" asked a traveller, addressing the conductor.