an had aroused it. I now saw the sinfulness of taking another
passenger's place in a railway-carriage.

But I could not make the other man see it. I felt that some service was
due from me to Justice, in compensation of the wrong I had done her a few
moments ago, and I argued most eloquently.

My rhetoric was, however, quite thrown away. "Oh! it's only a
vice-consul," he said; "here's his name on the bag. There's plenty of
room for him in with the guard."

It was no use my defending the sacred cause of Right before a man who
held sentiments like that; so, having lodged a protest against his
behaviour, and thus eased my conscience, I leant back and dozed the doze
of the just.

Five minutes before the train started, the rightful owners of the
carriage came up and crowded in. They seemed surprised at finding only
five vacant seats available between seven of them, and commenced to
quarrel vigorously among themselves.

B. and I and the unjust man in the corner tried to calm them, but passion
ran too high at first for the voice of Reason to be heard. Each
combination of five, possible among them, accused each remaining two of
endeavouring to obtain seats by fraud, and each one more than hinted that
the other six were liars.

What annoyed me was that they quarrelled in English. They all had
languages of their own,--there were four Belgians, two Frenchmen, and a
German,--but no language was good enough for them to insult each other in
but English.

Finding that there seemed to be no chance of their ever agreeing among
themselves, they appealed to us. We unhesitatingly decided in favour of
the five thinnest, who, thereupon, evidently regarding the matter as
finally settled, sat down, and told the other two to get out.

These two stout ones, however--the German and one of the Belgians--seemed
inclined to dispute the award, and called up the station-master.

The station-master did not wait to listen to what they had to say, but at
once began abusing them for being in the carriage at all. He told them
they ought to be ashamed of themselves for forcing their way into a
compartment that was already more than full, and inconveniencing the
people already there.

He also used English to explain this to them, and they got out on the
platform and answered him back in English.

English seems to be the popular language for quarrelling in, among
foreigners. I suppose they find it more expressive.

We all watched the g