“‘I come from a land where a lady would hardly give me the same provocation.’
“‘You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady—and I hope I am not one, after the pattern of your country.’
“‘I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam but at the same time I must insist—always respectfully—that you let me have my seat.’
“Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.
“‘I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is brutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has lost the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without agony!’
“‘Good heavens, madam, why didn’t you say that at first! I offer a thousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know—I could not know—that anything was the matter. You are most welcome to the seat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am truly sorry it all happened, I do assure you.’
“But he couldn’t get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed and snuffled in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours, meantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture, and paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little efforts to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the Italian line, and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a leg as any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was to see how she had fooled me!”
DISSATISFIED PASSENGERS.
Any one wanting a fair and yet amusing account of what really occurs to a person travelling in America should read G. A. Sala’s book called America Revisited. He speaks of a gentleman from the Eastern States whom he met in the train across the continent, and who thus held forth upon the difference between reality and guide-books:—
“There ain’t no bottling up of things about me. This overland journey’s a fraud, and you oughter know it. Don’t tell me. It’s a fraud. This Ring must be busted up. Where are your buffalers? Perhaps you’ll tell me that them cows is buffalers. They ain’t. Where are your prairie dogs? They ain’t dogs to begin with, they’re squirrels. Ain’t you ashamed to call the mean little cusses dogs? But where are they? There ain’t none. Where are your grizzlies? You might have imported a few grizzlies