in at full speed, to inquire how many
for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing forward the number of diners. Fancy
every one expected, and the table elegantly laid for the complete party.
Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room, and the head cook,
concerned for the honor of every dish, superintending in his clean white
jacket and cap. Fancy the Beast traveling six hundred miles on end, very
fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this to
be done for it!"

A spirited chorus of "The Beast!"

I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a soothing
hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't take
particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to stimilate public
feeling. It being a lark besides.

"Putting everything together," said Our Missis, "French Refreshmenting
comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total! First: eatable things
to eat, and drinkable things to drink."

A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.

"Second: convenience, and even elegance."

Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me.

"Third: moderate charges."

This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies.

"Fourth:--and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angriest
sympathy,--attention, common civility, nay, even politeness!"

Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together.

"And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis with her spitefullest
sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable nation (after
what I have related), than assuring you that they wouldn't bear our
constitutional ways and noble independence at Mugby Junction for a
single month, and that they would turn us to the right-about and put
another system in our places as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner, for
I do not believe they have the good taste to care to look at us twice."

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away by his
servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and a higher
relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew over his
head. It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' her eye upon
him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her victim. Our Missis
followed them both out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.

You come into the Down Refreshment Room at the Junction, making believe
you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my right thumb over my
shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is Miss Whiff,