thern horses and northern men, not he ... the
ox is a good sort, and one who strictly attends to business. He is an
animal that walks in the light. There are northern men who will
doubtless resent these remarks, so I may as well explain that my
comparisons have been prompted by the conduct of "the gang" which
offends my sense of decency.

The "happy low lie down" all over the car in various stages of
intoxication. How hideous they are with their unshaven faces, open
mouths and yellow teeth! Abroad they are silly; at home they are
heart-scalds. As they sprawl over the floor like huge primeval toads,
I am consumed by a desire to kick them with my boots. Drunkenness is a
disgusting, unfleshed sin.

And yet, these prostrate fellows are hardly more offensive than those
still able to sit up and debate about nothing. As controversialists
they remind me of the characters in _Alice through the Looking-Glass_,
who want "to deny something and don't know what it is." When any
over-wise babbler feels himself worsted in an argument, he says to his
opponent, "You are a liar." While fairly popular, this argument can
hardly be considered a logical one. It can be claimed, however, to
cover the whole ground, and to be a masterpiece of brevity.

One fellow, who reeled through the car in a molluscous invertebrate
condition, stopped by my seat to tell me he was my friend for life. He
was old enough to have known better, and I was glad when a glorious,
tall stranger collared the fellow and hurtled him down the aisle like a
hockey-player would hurtle the puck.

Soon afterwards the train's agent, a civil-spoken young man, came into
the car and took me into his caboose. I knew something fortunate would
happen on this journey.... And to think it came just as my nomad
spirit had failed me, and I was utterly crumpled with weariness and
hunger.

I would here desire to reiterate my belief that Providence is a large,
serene young man, with a strain of steel in him.

CHAPTER IV

BEHIND THE HILLS.

"Behind the hills, that's where the fairies are,
Behind the hills, that's where the sun goes down."

I fell asleep in the cupola of the caboose and dreamed that my head was
a rubber band holding too many notes, and that it was going to snap any
second. "Hit's the bloomin' haltitude in your 'ead, Ma'am," explained
a Cockney later, and I expect he was right, for we have made an ascent
of over one thousand feet since leaving