not a
lady--and I hope I am _not_ one, after the pattern of your country.'

"'I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam but at
the same time I must insist--always respectfully--that you let me have my
seat.'

"Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.

"'I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is
brutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has lost
the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without agony!'

"'Good heavens, madam, why didn't you say that at first! I offer a
thousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know--I
_could_ not know--that anything was the matter. You are most welcome to
the seat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am
truly sorry it all happened, I do assure you.'

"But he couldn't get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed
and snuffled in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours,
meantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture,
and paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little efforts
to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the Italian
line, and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a leg as
any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was to see how she had
fooled me!"

DISSATISFIED PASSENGERS.

Any one wanting a fair and yet amusing account of what really occurs to a
person travelling in America should read G. A. Sala's book called
_America Revisited_. He speaks of a gentleman from the Eastern States
whom he met in the train across the continent, and who thus held forth
upon the difference between reality and guide-books:--

"There ain't no bottling up of things about me. This overland journey's
a fraud, and you oughter know it. Don't tell me. It's a fraud. This
Ring must be busted up. Where are your buffalers? Perhaps you'll tell
me that them cows is buffalers. They ain't. Where are your prairie
dogs? They ain't dogs to begin with, they're squirrels. Ain't you
ashamed to call the mean little cusses dogs? But where are they? There
ain't none. Where are your grizzlies? You might have imported a few
grizzlies to keep up the name of your railroad. Where are your herds of
antelopes scudding before the advancing train? Nary an antelope have you
got for to scud. Rocky Mountains, sir? They ain't rocky at all--they're
as f