r the
tunnel the lady said, 'George, how absurd of you to salute me going
through the tunnel.' 'I did no such thing.' 'You didn't?' 'No! why?'
'Because somehow I thought you did!'"

Here Captain Dolignan laughed and endeavored to lead his companion to
laugh, but it was not to be done. The train entered the tunnel.

_Miss Haythorn._ Ah!

_Dolignan._ What is the matter?

_Miss Haythorn._ I am frightened.

_Dolignan_ (moving to her side). Pray do not be alarmed; I am near you.

_Miss Haythorn._ You are near me,--very near me, indeed, Captain
Dolignan.

_Dolignan._ You know my name?

_Miss Haythorn._ I heard you mention it. I wish we were out of this dark
place.

_Dolignan._ I could be content to spend hours here, reassuring you, my
dear lady.

_Miss Haythorn._ Nonsense!

_Dolignan._ Pweep! (Grave reader, do not put your lips to the next
pretty creature you meet, or you will understand what this means.)

_Miss Haythorn._ Ee! Ee!

_Friend._ What is the matter?

_Miss Haythorn._ Open the door! Open the door!

There was a sound of hurried whispers, the door was shut and the blind
pulled down with hostile sharpness.

If any critic falls on me for putting inarticulate sounds in a dialogue
as above, I answer with all the insolence I can command at present. "Hit
boys as big as yourself"; bigger, perhaps, such as Sophocles, Euripides,
and Aristophanes; they began it, and I learned it of them, sore against
my will.

Miss Haythorn's scream lost most of its effect because the engine
whistled forty thousand murders at the same moment; and fictitious grief
makes itself heard when real cannot.

Between the tunnel and Bath our young friend had time to ask himself
whether his conduct had been marked by that delicate reserve which is
supposed to distinguish the perfect gentleman.

With a long face, real or feigned, he held open the door; his late
friends attempted to escape on the other side,--impossible! they must
pass him. She whom he had insulted (Latin for kissed) deposited
somewhere at his feet a look of gentle, blushing reproach; the other,
whom he had not insulted, darted red-hot daggers at him from her eyes;
and so they parted.

It was, perhaps, fortunate for Dolignan that he had the grace to be a
friend to Major Hoskyns of his regiment, a veteran laughed at by the
youngsters, for the Major was too apt to look coldly upon billiard-balls
and cigars; he had seen cannon-balls and linstocks. He had also, to t