ire seat to
myself.

Aside from the selfishness of the average traveler, who, while unwilling
to pay for more sitting, is more than willing to monopolize the whole
seat, I was glad of plenty of elbow room to enable me to answer some
pressing letters.

But as the car began to fill up, I knew the bag at my side must soon give
way to another kind of neighbor, and presently down the aisle he came.
From a perpendicular standpoint he was small, but horizontally, he was
immense, and I viewed his approach with some alarm.

There was a merry twinkle in his eye, and his face beamed with good
nature as he said, "Ah, I see you have room for a wedge at your side;
allow me to put it in place." With considerable effort and a good deal
of tight squeezing, he at last settled down in the seat, remarking, with
a merry laugh, "Here I am at last;" and there I was too, and there I was
likely to remain, if that wedge did not fly out, or the side of the car
give way.

"Have you room enough?" I slyly inquired.

"Plenty of room, thank you," he replied; "I trust you are nice and snug."

"Never more snug in my life."

"That's right; the loose way in which most people travel is a continual
menace to life and limb. I believe in keeping things snug, spiritually,
physically, socially, financially and politically snug. And if things
are spiritually snug, all the others must be so, as a matter of course.
I learned that fact years ago in England."

"Are you an Englishman," I inquired.

"No, sir; I'm a Presbyterian" he laughingly replied; "my father was born
in England, my mother was born in Ohio, and I was born the first time in
New Jersey. Then on a visit to England I was 'born again.' My father
was a Methodist; my mother was a Quaker, so of course I had to be a
Presbyterian."

His unctuous laughter made the seat tremble. "Not a blue one, mind you.
Blue? Not a bit of it. Why, bless you, when I became a Christian, all
the blue went out of my heart and went into my sky.

"My father was physically large--I take after him. My mother--" he
stopped abruptly and lifted his hat reverently; the tears filled his eyes
and coursed down his cheeks, and presently, with choking voice he
continued:

"My mother, God bless her memory, was the best woman and the grandest
Christian I ever knew. She lives in heaven, and she lives in my heart.
I would that I were as much like mother spiritually as I resemble father
physically."

The tender pathos