a fly that was
trespassing on the upper part of his right ear.

Then, when the bridge is passed, and the train is skirting the very edge
of a precipice, so that a stone dropped just outside the window would
tumble straight down 300 feet, he suddenly lets go, and, balancing
himself on the foot-board without holding on to anything, commences to
dance a sort of Teutonic cellar-flap, and to warm his body by flinging
his arms about in the manner of cabmen on a cold day.

The first essential to comfortable railway travelling in Germany is to
make up your mind not to care a rap whether the guard gets killed in the
course of the journey or not. Any tender feeling towards the guard makes
railway travelling in the Fatherland a simple torture.

At five a.m. (how fair and sweet and fresh the earth looks in the early
morning! Those lazy people who lie in bed till eight or nine miss half
the beauty of the day, if they but knew it. It is only we who rise early
that really enjoy Nature properly) I gave up trying to get to sleep, and
made my way to the dressing-room at the end of the car, and had a wash.

It is difficult to wash in these little places, because the cars shake
so; and when you have got both your hands and half your head in the
basin, and are unable to protect yourself, the sides of the room, and the
water-tap and the soap-dish, and other cowardly things, take a mean
advantage of your helplessness to punch you as hard as ever they can; and
when you back away from these, the door swings open and slaps you from
behind.

I succeeded, however, in getting myself fairly wet all over, even if I
did nothing else, and then I looked about for a towel. Of course, there
was no towel. That is the trick. The idea of the railway authorities is
to lure the passenger, by providing him with soap and water and a basin,
into getting himself thoroughly soaked, and then to let it dawn upon him
that there is no towel. That is their notion of fun!

I thought of the handkerchiefs in my bag, but to get to them I should
have to pass compartments containing ladies, and I was only in early
morning dress.

So I had to wipe myself with a newspaper which I happened to have in my
pocket, and a more unsatisfactory thing to dry oneself upon I cannot
conceive.

I woke up B. when I got back to the carriage, and persuaded him to go and
have a wash; and in listening to the distant sound of his remarks when he
likewise discovered that there was n