een spread over the greater part of the day
crowded into one morning. I sympathized with the vulture, who

"Eats between his meals,
And that's the reason why
He very, very rarely feels
As well as you and I."

It is never pleasant to come down from the heights, and we had rather
a dreary journey to Siliguri.

Boggley had taken care to wire for a lower berth in the train for me,
but it seems ordained that I shall ascend in Indian trains. I again
found myself in a carriage with my Americans, and the daughter had
such bad toothache, and seemed so much to dread the prospect of
mounting to the eyrie, that I had to say that I would rather like it
for myself.

Toothache kept Miss America awake and made her talkative, which was
unfortunate for me. She wanted to know all about the manners and
customs of the British. She only knew us from the outside, so to
speak. Incidentally she shed a lurid light on the habits of the
American male. It seems that young men in America are expected to
carry offerings of fruit and flowers and candy to young women--not
when they are engaged, mark you; what is expected of them then I
daren't think--but to quite irrelevant young women. "Don't young
gentlemen do so in England?" asked Miss America. "No," I said, feeling
that I was making out my countrymen poor, mean creatures indeed, but
feeling also how much more complicated life would become for these
"gentlemen of England now abed" if they had to carry crates of
oranges, drums of figs, and pounds of candies to every casual young
woman whose acquaintance they enjoyed.

"You don't say!" said Miss America. "And don't they take you out
driving in their buggies?"

"_Never_," I replied firmly. "They haven't got them."

"You don't say! And how does a young gentleman show he admires you?"

"Well, he doesn't as a rule," I murmured feebly.

"I guess," she said, "we manage things better in America." And,
indeed, perhaps they do.

This conversation so exhausted us that we fell very sound asleep, and
knew nothing till we arrived at the station where we had to get out
and change into the ferry-boat. Then there was a terrible scurry. The
servants waiting to pack up the bedding and strap bags--they said they
had wakened us at the previous station, but they must have wakened
someone else instead--while we threw on various articles of clothing,
stuck hats on undone hair, and feet into unlaced shoes, all the while,
like a Greek chorus, the "M