held on to it like grim death. Away
went the goat, at his end of the rope, and, with him, the dog at the
other end. Between them, they kept the rope about six inches above the
ground, and with it they remorselessly mowed down every living thing they
came across in that once peaceful village. In the course of less than
half a minute we counted fourteen persons sitting down in the middle of
the road. Eight of them were cursing the goat, four were cursing the
dog, and two of them were cursing the old man for keeping the goat, one
of these two, and the more violent one, being the man's own wife.

The train left at this juncture. We entreated the railway officials to
let us stop and see the show out. The play was becoming quite
interesting. It was so full of movement. But they said that we were
half-an-hour late as it was, and that they dared not.

We leaned out of the window, and watched for as long as we could; and
after the village was lost to view in the distance, we could still, by
listening carefully, hear the thuds, as one after another of the
inhabitants sat down and began to swear.

At about eleven o'clock we had some beer--you can generally obtain such
light refreshment as bottled beer and coffee and rolls from the guard on
a through long-distance train in Germany--took off our boots, and saying
"Good-night" to each other, made a great show of going to sleep. But we
never succeeded in getting there. They wanted to see one's ticket too
often for one to get fairly off.

Every few minutes, so it seemed to me, though in reality the intervals
may perhaps have been longer, a ghostly face would appear at the
carriage-window, and ask to see our tickets.

Whenever a German railway-guard feels lonesome, and does not know what
else to do with himself, he takes a walk round the train, and gets the
passengers to show him their tickets, after which he returns to his box
cheered and refreshed. Some people rave about sunsets and mountains and
old masters; but to the German railway-guard the world can show nothing
more satisfying, more inspiring, than the sight of a railway-ticket.

Nearly all the German railway officials have this same craving for
tickets. If only they get somebody to show them a railway-ticket, they
are happy. It seemed a harmless weakness of theirs, and B. and I decided
that it would be only kind to humour them in it during our stay.

Accordingly, whenever we saw a German railway official sta