ng-car, and sat down at
one of the tables.

"Will you, please, give me a cup of tea?" I said to one of the colored
waiters.

"I can't do dat, sah," said the negro. "You can have dinnah."

"But I don't want _dinnah_," I replied; "I want a cup of tea."

"Den you must ask dat gem'man if you can have it," said he, pointing to
the above mentioned "gentleman."

I went to him.

"Excuse me," said I, "are you the nobleman who runs this show?"

He frowned.

"I don't want to dine; I should like to have a cup of tea."

He frowned a little more, and deigned to hear my request to the end.

"Can I?" I repeated.

He spoke not; he brought his eyebrows still lower down, and solemnly
shook his head.

"Can't I really?" I continued.

At last he spoke.

"You can," quoth he, "for a dollar."

And, taking the bill of fare in his hands, without wasting any more of
his precious utterances, he pointed out to me:

"Each meal one dollar."

The argument was unanswerable.

I went back to my own car, resumed my seat, and betook myself to
reflection.

What I cannot, for the life of me, understand is why, in a train which
has a dining car and a kitchen, a man cannot be served with a cup of
tea, unless he pays the price of a dinner for it, and this
notwithstanding the fact of his having paid five dollars extra to enjoy
the extra luxury of this famous vestibule train.

[Illustration: "WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT?"]

After all, this is one out of the many illustrations one could give to
show that whatever Jonathan is, he is not the master in his own house.

The Americans are the most docile people in the world. They are the
slaves of their servants, whether these are high officials, or the
"reduced duchesses" of domestic service. They are so submitted to their
lot that they seem to find it quite natural.

The Americans are lions governed by bull-dogs and asses.

They have given themselves a hundred thousand masters, these folks who
laugh at monarchies, for example, and scorn the rule of a king, as if it
were better to be bullied by a crowd than by an individual.

In America, the man who pays does not command the paid. I have already
said it; I will maintain the truth of the statement that, in America,
the paid servant rules. Tyranny from above is bad; tyranny from below is
worse.

Of my many first impressions that have deepened into convictions, this
is one of the firmest.

When you arrive at an English railway station, all t