te. The porter was a pretty thick-headed darky, but he was
lion-hearted; and his idea was to lay hold of a burglar wherever he
could find him. There were plenty of burglars in the aisle there, or
people that were afraid of burglars, and they seemed to think the porter
had a good idea. They had hold of one another already, and now began to
pull up and down the aisles in a way that reminded me of the
old-fashioned mesmeric lecturers, when they told their subjects that
they were this or that, and set them to acting the part. I remembered
how once when the mesmerist gave out that they were at a horse--race,
and his subjects all got astride of their chairs, and galloped up and
down the hall like a lot of little boys on laths. I thought of that now,
and although it was rather a serious business, for I didn't know what
minute they would come to blows, I couldn't help laughing. The sight was
weird enough. Every one looked like a somnambulist as he pulled and
hauled. The young lady in the stateroom was doing her full share. She
was screaming, 'Won't somebody let me out?' and hammering on the door. I
guess it was her screaming and hammering that brought the conductor at
last, or maybe he just came round in the course of nature to take up the
tickets. It was before the time when they took the tickets at the gate,
and you used to stick them into a little slot at the side of your berth,
and the conductor came along and took them in the night, somewhere
between Worcester and Springfield, I should say."

"I remember," Rulledge assented, but very carefully, so as not to
interrupt the flow of the narrative. "Used to wake up everybody in the
car."

"Exactly," the stranger said. "But this time they were all wide awake to
receive him, or fast asleep, and dreaming their roles. He came along
with the wire of his lantern over his arm, the way the old-time
conductors did, and calling out, 'Tickets!' just as if it was broad day,
and he believed every man was trying to beat his way to New York. The
oddest thing about it was that the sleep-walkers all stopped their
pulling and hauling a moment, and each man reached down to the little
slot alongside of his berth and handed over his ticket. Then they took
hold and began pulling and hauling again. I suppose the conductor asked
what the matter was; but I couldn't hear him, and I couldn't make out
exactly what he did say. But the passengers understood, and they all
shouted 'Burglars!' and that girl i