roup from the window. We were amused and interested.
In the middle of the argument an early gendarme arrived on the scene.
The gendarme naturally supported the station-master. One man in uniform
always supports another man in uniform, no matter what the row is about,
or who may be in the right--that does not trouble him. It is a fixed
tenet of belief among uniform circles that a uniform can do no wrong. If
burglars wore uniform, the police would be instructed to render them
every assistance in their power, and to take into custody any householder
attempting to interfere with them in the execution of their business.
The gendarme assisted the station-master to abuse the two stout
passengers, and he also abused them in English. It was not good English
in any sense of the word. The man would probably have been able to give
his feelings much greater variety and play in French or Flemish, but that
was not his object. His ambition, like every other foreigner's, was to
become an accomplished English quarreller, and this was practice for him.

A Customs House clerk came out and joined in the babel. He took the part
of the passengers, and abused the station-master and the gendarme, and
_he_ abused _them_ in English.

B. said he thought it very pleasant here, far from our native shores, in
the land of the stranger, to come across a little homely English row like
this.

SATURDAY, 24TH--CONTINUED

A Man of Family.--An Eccentric Train.--Outrage on an Englishman.--Alone
in Europe.--Difficulty of Making German Waiters Understand
Scandinavian.--Danger of Knowing Too Many Languages.--A Wearisome
Journey.--Cologne, Ahoy!

There was a very well-informed Belgian in the carriage, and he told us
something interesting about nearly every town through which we passed. I
felt that if I could have kept awake, and have listened to that man, and
remembered what he said, and not mixed things up, I should have learnt a
good deal about the country between Ostend and Cologne.

He had relations in nearly every town, had this man. I suppose there
have been, and are, families as large and as extensive as his; but I
never heard of any other family that made such a show. They seemed to
have been planted out with great judgment, and were now all over the
country. Every time I awoke, I caught some such scattered remark as:

"Bruges--you can see the belfry from this side--plays a polka by Haydn
every hour. My aunt lives here." "Ghen