woman?" demanded the bustling
official.

"No; but I will be responsible for her fare," I replied, with as much
dignity as Mr. Collingsby could have assumed. "If she don't pay you
when we get to Chicago, I will."

"Will you, indeed! That is very kind of you; but we don't do business
in that way," laughed the conductor, with a glance which indicated how
much he pitied my greenness. "She has money enough, and she didn't buy
any ticket. It is only a trick to get rid of paying her fare."

"I will be responsible for the fare."

"Pay it now, then," added the conductor, shrugging his shoulders.

I do not know what it was that prompted me to this chivalrous action in
favor of a very disagreeable old lady; but I felt like a Christian who
was fighting the battle of his enemy. I took out my porte-monnaie, and
from the fifty-three dollars I had left of the sum I had taken to pay
my expenses, I gave the conductor twelve. He handed me a check for the
old lady, jumped out, and started the train. He treated me as though he
thought I was a fool; and I was myself inclined to believe he was more
than half right.

Several passengers had left the car at this station, and when I
returned to my seat, I found that Mr. Collingsby had changed his place
for one where he had a whole chair to himself, at some distance from
the old lady. I had no doubt he was glad to escape from the vicinity of
the troublesome passenger; but he still read his newspaper, as though
nothing had for a moment ruffled the current of his thoughts.

"I knew he wouldn't dare to put me out of the car!" said Mrs.
Whippleton, as I resumed my seat at her side. "Don't talk to me! He
didn't dare to perpetuate such an outrage."

"We are all right now," I replied.

"Yes, we are. Put me out! I should like to seen him done it! I should!
I reckon my son Charles would have taught him what it was to perpetuate
such an outrage on his mother. As for that Mr. Collingsby, he's a mean
man! Only to think that he didn't know me!"

"Have you ever met him?"

"Have I? Yes, I have. I have been in the counting-room when he was
there, and he looked right at me! And now he don't know me! No matter;
that conductor didn't dare to put me out of the car! He would have lost
his place if he had."

I handed her the check which the gentlemanly official had given me.

"What's that?"

"Your check."

"He's gettin' very perlite. How came he to give you this?"

"Because I paid your fare," I rep