hem in the best German I knew. As nobody understood me, I went
and got the things for myself. It saves a deal of argument, that method.
People seem to know what you mean in a moment then.

B. suggested that while we were in Belgium, where everybody spoke French,
while very few indeed knew German, I should stand a better chance of
being understood if I talked less German and more French.

He said:

"It will be easier for you, and less of a strain upon the natives. You
stick to French," he continued, "as long as ever you can. You will get
along much better with French. You will come across people now and
then--smart, intelligent people--who will partially understand your
French, but no human being, except a thought-reader, will ever obtain any
glimmering of what you mean from your German."

"Oh, are we in Belgium," I replied sleepily; "I thought we were in
Germany. I didn't know." And then, in a burst of confidence, I added,
feeling that further deceit was useless, "I don't know where I am, you
know."

"No, I thought you didn't," he replied. "That is exactly the idea you
give anybody. I wish you'd wake up a bit."

We waited about an hour at Ostend, while our train was made up. There
was only one carriage labelled for Cologne, and four more passengers
wanted to go there than the compartment would hold.

Not being aware of this, B. and I made no haste to secure places, and, in
consequence, when, having finished our coffee, we leisurely strolled up
and opened the carriage door we saw that every seat was already booked.
A bag was in one space and a rug in another, an umbrella booked a third,
and so on. Nobody was there, but the seats were gone!

It is the unwritten law among travellers that a man's luggage deposited
upon a seat, shall secure that seat to him until he comes to sit upon it
himself. This is a good law and a just law, and one that, in my normal
state, I myself would die to uphold and maintain.

But at three o'clock on a chilly morning one's moral sensibilities are
not properly developed. The average man's conscience does not begin work
till eight or nine o'clock--not till after breakfast, in fact. At three
a.m. he will do things that at three in the afternoon his soul would
revolt at.

Under ordinary circumstances I should as soon have thought of shifting a
man's bag and appropriating his seat as an ancient Hebrew squatter would
have thought of removing his neighbour's landmark; but at th