Punch, or The London Charivari | Page 4

matter to my successor, and I have no doubt that he will be able (this also with a significant wink) to ensure the gentleman's seclusion. You are, I think, four? If you will follow me, and take my arm, Sir, I think we shall be able to manage it for you."
3. Enlist the assistance of several attendant porters, regardless of apparent outlay, who have been fairly let into your secret, and are prepared to, and in fact absolutely do, empty a third-class compartment already packed with passengers for Barminster, who retreat awe-stricken at your approach.
4. Immediately on taking possession of your carriage, recline the whole length of the five seats, faced by your three sympathetic and anxious-miened female companions. Be careful to give each of the assistant porters certainly not less than sixpence apiece in ostentatious fashion. Do not, however, as yet administer the shilling, or perhaps, eighteenpence you purpose giving to the original guard of the train who is to hand you over to the official who will have charge of you after Bolchester.
5. You will possibly have a _mauvais quart d'heure_ before departure, for though your guard, in hopes of the remunerative fee, will have carefully locked you in, he will not be able to prevent the calculating and more or less unfeeling British public, who, composed of a party of nine, are looking for as many places as they can find together, from discovering that you have six vacant places in your carriage, and directing the attention of other railway officials, not initiated into your secret agreement, to this circumstance. You must therefore be prepared for some such curt brutality as, "Why, look 'ere, EMMA, there's room for 'arf-a-dozen of us 'ere!" or, "I'm sure 'e needn't be a sprawlin' like that, takin' 'arf the carriage to 'isself," a rebuke which your feminine supporters resent in their severest manner. You are, however, at length saved by the interposition of your guardian angel, who sweeps away the party of nine unseated ones with a voice of commanding control, as much as to say, "This isn't your end of the train; besides, can't you see the poor gentleman's pretty well dying?" And he does hurry them off, and pack them in somewhere or other, but whether to their satisfaction or not, it is easier to hazard a guess than faithfully to record.
6. Bolchester is reached, and you are formally introduced to your final guarding and protecting angel, who rapidly takes in the situation, and by an assurance that he will see to your comfort, this, accompanied by a slightly perceptible wink, leaves you in happy expectation, which the result justifies, of reaching your destination uninvaded.
* * * * *
THE TRAVELLING COMPANIONS.
NO. V. Scene--_Upper deck of the Rhine Steamer, K?nig Wilhelm, somewhere between Bonn and Bingen. The little tables on deck are occupied by English, American, and German tourists, drinking various liquids, from hock to Pilsener beer, and eating veal-cutlets. Mr. CYRUS K. TROTTER is on the lower deck, discussing the comparative merits of the New York hotels with a fellow countryman. Miss MAUD S. TROTTER is seated on the after-deck in close conversation with CULCHARD. PODBURY _is perched on a camp-stool in the forward part. Near him a British Matron, with a red-haired son, in a green and black blazer, and a blue flannel nightcap, and a bevy of rabbit-faced daughters, are patronising a tame German Student in spectacles, who speaks a little English._
[Illustration: Mr. Cyrus K. Trotter discussing New York Hotels.]
The British Matron. Oh, you ought to see London; it's our capital--chief city, you know. Very grand--large--four million inhabitants! [_With pride, as being in some way responsible for this._
_A Rabbit-faced Daughter_ (_with a simper_). Quite a little _world_!
[_She looks down her nose, as if in fear of having said something a little too original._
_The Germ. Stud._ No, I haf not yet at London peen. Ven I vill pedder Englisch learn, I go.
The Blazer. You read our English books, I suppose? DICKENS, you know, and HOMER, eh? About the Trojan War--that's his best work!
_The Stud._ (_Ollendorffically_). I haf not read DIGGINS; but I haf read ze bapers by Bigvig. Zey are vary indereshtin, and gurious.
A Patriotic Young Scot (_to an admiring Elderly Lady in a black mushroom hat_). Eh, but we just made a pairrty and went up Auld Drachenfels, and when we got to th' tope, we danced a richt gude Scots reel, and sang, "_We're a' togither an' naebody by_." concluding--just to show, ye'll understan', that we were loyal subjics--wi' "_God Save th' Queen_." The peasants didna seem just to know what to mak' of us, I prawmise ye!
The Black Mushroom. How I wish I'd been one of you!
The Young Scot (_candidly_). I doot your legs would ha' stood such wark.
[_PODBURY becomes restless, and picks his way