r, but in order that
they might make the company pay for its iniquity. But it was soon
apparent to them that they themselves had no ground of complaint, and
as everybody was very civil, and as a seat in the banquette over the
heads of the American ladies was provided for them, and as the man
from the bureau came and apologised, they consented to be pacified,
and ended, of course, by tipping half-a-dozen of the servants about
the yard. Mr. Glascock had a man of his own with him, who was very
nearly being put on to the same seat with his master as an extra
civility; but this inconvenience was at last avoided. Having settled
these little difficulties, they went into breakfast in the buffet.

There could be no better breakfast than used to be given in the
buffet at the railway terminus at St. Michael. The company might
occasionally be led into errors about that question of coupe seats,
but in reference to their provisions, they set an example which might
be of great use to us here in England. It is probably the case that
breakfasts for travellers are not so frequently needed here as they
are on the Continent; but, still, there is often to be found a crowd
of people ready to eat if only the wherewithal were there. We are
often told in our newspapers that England is disgraced by this and
by that; by the unreadiness of our army, by the unfitness of our
navy, by the irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of our
prejudices, and what not; but the real disgrace of England is the
railway sandwich,--that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but
so meagre, poor, and spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and
parings, such a dab of food, telling us that the poor bone whence it
was scraped had been made utterly bare before it was sent into the
kitchen for the soup pot. In France one does get food at the railway
stations, and at St. Michael the breakfast was unexceptional.

Our two friends seated themselves near to the American ladies, and
were, of course, thanked for their politeness. American women are
taught by the habits of their country to think that men should give
way to them more absolutely than is in accordance with the practices
of life in Europe. A seat in a public conveyance in the States, when
merely occupied by a man, used to be regarded by any woman as being
at her service as completely as though it were vacant. One woman
indicating a place to another would point with equal freedom to a man
or a space. It is