round in such one-horse
countries. In Leipzig they sat a nigger down beside me at the table. In
Amsterdam they had cheese for breakfast. In Munich the head waiter had
never heard of buckwheat cakes. In Mannheim they charged me ten pfennigs
extra for a cake of soap.

THE FIRST MAN

What do you think of the railroad trains over here?

THE SECOND MAN

Rotten. That compartment system is all wrong. If nobody comes into your
compartment it's lonesome, and if anybody _does_ come in it's too damn
sociable. And if you try to stretch out and get some sleep, some ruffian
begins singing in the next compartment, or the conductor keeps butting
in and jabbering at you.

THE FIRST MAN

But you can say _one_ thing for the German trains: they get in on time.

THE SECOND MAN

So they do, but no wonder! They run so slow they can't _help_ it. The
way I figure it, a German engineer must have a devil of a time holding
his engine in. The fact is, he usually can't, and so he has to wait
outside every big town until the schedule catches up to him. They say
they never have accidents, but is it any more than you expect? Did you
ever hear of a mud turtle having an accident?

THE FIRST MAN

Scarcely. As you say, these countries are far behind the times. I saw a
fire in Cologne; you would have laughed your head off! It was in a feed
store near my hotel, and I got there before the firemen. When they came
at last, in their tinpot hats, they got out half a dozen big squirts and
rushed into the building with them. Then, when it was out, they put the
squirts back into their little express wagon and drove off. Not a line
of hose run out, not an engine puffing, not a gong heard, not a soul
letting out a whoop! It was more like a Sunday-school picnic than a
fire. I guess if these Dutch ever _did_ have a civilised blaze, it would
scare them to death. But they never have any.

THE SECOND MAN

Well, what can you expect? A country where all the charwomen are men and
all the garbage men are women!--

_For the moment the two have talked each other out, and so they lounge
upon the rail in silence and gaze out over the valley. Anon the
gumchewer spits. By now the sun has reached the skyline to the westward
and the tops of the ice mountains are in gorgeous conflagration.
Scarlets war with golden oranges, and vermilions fade into palpitating
pinks. Below, in the valley, the colours begin to fade slowly to a
uniform seashell grey. It is a