[Ill.u.s.tration: BEHIND THE SCENES

_Head Barmaid._ "These tarts are quite stale, Miss Hunt--been on the counter for a fortnight! _Would_ you mind taking them into the _second-cla.s.s_ refreshment-room?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A LUSUS MACHINER--ae

_Chatty Pa.s.senger._ "Porter! That's one of those curious tailless Manx cats, is it not?"

_Crusty Porter (shortly)._ "No, 'taint. Morn'g 'xpress!"

_Pa.s.senger (puzzled)._ "E--h--I don't understand----"

_Porter._ "Don't yer? Well, you come and put your toe on these 'ere down metals about 9.14 a.m. to-morrow, and----"

_Pa.s.senger (enlightened)._ "Ah!--I see--jus' so----"

[_Retires under cover of newspaper._

RAILWAY COMPANIONS

(_By a Disagreeable Traveller_)

I.

I have come to the conclusion that the railway train exercises a sinister influence upon the human race. Persons who are tolerable--or even welcome--in ordinary daily life, become peculiarly obnoxious so soon as they enter the compartment of a train. No fairy prince ever stepped into a railway train--a.s.suming he favoured that means of locomotion--without being transformed straightway into a Beast, and even Beauty herself could not be distinguished from her disagreeable sisters--in a train.

Speaking for myself, railway travelling invariably brings to the surface all my worst qualities.

My neighbour opposite hazards some remark. I feel immediately a fit of taciturnity coming over me, and an overpowering inclination to retreat behind a fortification of journals and magazines. On the other hand, say that I have exhausted my stock of railway literature--or, no remote possibility, that the literature has exhausted me--then I make a casual remark about the weather. The weather is not usually considered a controversial topic: in railway trains, however, it becomes so.

"Rain! not a bit," says a pa.s.senger in the far corner, evidently meditating a walking tour, and he views me suspiciously as if I were a rain-producer.

"And a good thing too," remarks the man opposite. "It's wanted badly, I tell you, sir--very badly. It's all very well for you holiday folk,"

&c., &c.

And all this bad feeling because of my harmless well-intentioned remark.

The window is up. "Phew!... stuffy," says the man opposite. "You don't mind, I hope, the window--eh?" "Not in the least," I say, and conceive a deadly hatred for him. I know from experience that directly that window is down all the winds of heaven will conspire to rush through, bearing upon them a smoky pall. I resign myself, therefore, to possible bronchitis and inflammation of the eye. Schoolboys, I may remark by the way, are the worst window offenders, owing to their diabolical practice of looking out of window in a tunnel--and, of course, _nothing_ ever happens to them. What's the use of expostulating after the compartment is full of yellow, choking vapour. These boys should be leashed together like dogs and conveyed in the luggage-van.

The window is down. "W-h-oop," coughs an elderly man. "Do you mind, sir, that window being closed?" Polite mendacity and inward bitterness on my part towards the individual who has converted the compartment into an oven.

But there are worse companions even than these, of whom I must speak another time.

II.

I have known people thoughtlessly speak well of the luncheon-basket. In my opinion, the luncheon-basket arouses the worst pa.s.sions of human nature, and is a direct incentive to deeds of violence. To say this is to cast an aspersion upon the refreshment contractor, who is evidently a man of touchingly simple faith and high imagination. Simple faith a.s.suredly, for does he not provide on the principle that our insides are hardy and vigorous and unspoilt by the art of cooking? High imagination most certainly, otherwise he would never call that red fluid by the name of claret.

No, it is to the social rather than to the gastronomic influence of the luncheon-basket that I wish to advert.

Once I procured a luncheon-basket and with it came the demon of discontent and suspicion, converting three neutral people into deadly enemies.

One was a pale young man who had been scowling over Browning and making frantic notes on the margin of the book. Personally, I don't think it quite decent for pale young men to improve their minds in a public conveyance--but at any rate he had seemed harmless. Now he raised his eyes and viewed me with undisguised contempt. "Wretched glutton," he said in effect, and when accidentally I burned my mouth with mustard (which a sudden swerve had sent meandering in a yellow stream across the chicken and ham), he gave a sneering, callous smile, which reminded me that a man may smile and smile and be a--railway companion.

I verily believe that youth to be capable of any crime, even Extension lecturing.

Then there was a young lady reading a sixpenny Braddon, who viewed me as if I were some monster; when I shut my eyes and gulped off some--er--claret, she brought biscuits and lemonade from a small bag and refreshed herself with ostentatious simplicity, as if to say, "Look upon _this_ picture and on the wine-bibbing epicurean in the corner." An old lady with her was more amply provided for (old ladies usually take more care of their insides than anyone else in creation), but although she munched sandwiches and washed them down with sherry (probably sweet, ugh!) luxuriously, she looked with pious horror at my plates and dishes spread out. I _might_ have said, "Madam, I eat frankly and openly; my resources may be viewed by all. Your secret and delusive bags have limitless resources that you are ashamed to show."

I didn't say so; but the restraint placed on myself quite spoilt the lunch. No more baskets.

[Ill.u.s.tration: a FORTIORI

_Ticket Collector._ "Now, then, make haste! Where's your ticket?"

_Bandsman (refreshed)._ "Au've lost it!"

_Ticket Collector._ "Nonsense! Feel in your pockets. Ye cannot hev lost it!"

_Bandsman._ "Aw cannot? Why, man, au've lost the _big drum!_"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "JUST OUT!"--(AT ALL THE LIBRARIES)

_First Young Lady._ "How did you like _Convict Life_, dear?"

_Second Young Lady._ "Pretty well. We've just begun _Ten Years' Penal Servitude_. Some of us like it, but----"

_Old Lady (mentally)._ "Good gracious! What dreadful creatures! So young, too!"

[_Looks for the communicating cord!_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RATHER SUSPICIOUS

_First Pa.s.senger._ "Had pretty good sport?"

_Second Pa.s.senger._ "No--very poor. Birds wild--rain in torrents--dogs no use. 'Only got fifty brace!"

_First Pa.s.senger._ "'Make birds dear, won't it?"