rk complexion.

In addition, I have the honour to inform you of further specimens of
this inurbanity and bearishness from officials who are perfect strangers
to the writer. Each morning I journey through the subterranean bowels of
the earth to the Temple, and on a recent occasion, when I was
descending the stairs in haste to pop into the train, lo and behold,
just as I reached the gate, it was shut in my nose by the churlishness
of the jack-in-office!

At which, stung to the quick at so unprovoked and unpremeditated an
affront, I accosted him severely through the bars of the wicket,
demanding sarcastically, "Is _this_ your boasted British Jurisprudence?"

The savage heart of the Collector was moved by my expostulation, and he
consented to open the gate, and imprint a perforated hole on my ticket;
but, alack! his repentance was a day after the fair, for the train had
already taken its hook into the Cimmerian gloom of a tunnel! When the
next train arrived, I, waiting prudently until it was quiescent, stepped
into a compartment, wherein I was dismayed and terrified to find myself
alone with an individual and two lively young terriers, which barked
minaciously at my legs.

[Illustration: "LET OUT! LET OUT!!"]

But I, with much presence of mind, protruded my head from the window,
vociferating to those upon the platform, "Let out! Let out!! Fighting
dogs are here!!!"

And they met my appeal with unmannerly jeerings, until the controller of
the train, seeing that I was firm in upholding my dignity of British
subject, and claiming my just rights, unfastened the door and permitted
me to escape; but, while I was yet in search of a compartment where
no canine elements were in the manger, the train was once more in
motion, and I, being no daredevil to take such leap into the dark, was a
second time left behind, and a loser of two trains. Moreover, though I
have written a humbly indignant petition to the Hon'ble Directors of the
Company pointing out loss of time and inconvenience through incivility,
and asking them for small pecuniary compensation, they have assumed the
rhinoceros hide, and nilled my request with dry eyes.

But I shall next make the further complaint that, even when making every
effort to do the civil, the result is apt to kill with kindness; and--as
King CHARLES THE FIRST, when they were shuffling off his mortal coil,
politely apologised for the unconscionable long time that his head took
to decapitate--so