passenger's power to take away, to empty in the
carriage at perfect leisure, and to return at
another station fifty or a hundred miles further
on?"

There was disagreement that such a person
should he called. Whether revolutionist, atheist
Bright (I said him), or Un-English. Miss
Piff screeched her shrill opinion last, in the
words: "A malignant maniac!"

"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set
upou such a person by the righteous indignation
of my friend Miss Plff. A malignant maniac.
Know then, that that malignant maniac has
sprung from the congenial soil of France, and
that his malignant madness was unchecked
action on this same part of my journey."

I noticed that Snilf was a rubbing his hands,
and that Mrs. Sniff had got her eye upon him.
But I did not take more particular notice,
owing to the excited state in which the young
ladies was, and to feeling myself called upon to
keep it up with a howl.

"On my experience south of Paris," said Our
Missis, in a deep tone, "I will not expatiate.
Too loathsome were the task! But fancy this.
Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at
full speed, to inquire how many for dinner.
Fancy his telegraphing forward, the number of
diners. Fancy every one expected, and the
table elegantly laid for the complete party.
Fancy a charming dinner, in a charming room,
and the head-cook, concerned for the honour of
every dish, superintending iu his clean white
jacket and cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six
hundred miles on end, very fast, and with great
punctuality, yet being taught to expect all this
to be done for it!"

A spirited chorus of "The Beast!"

I noticed that Sniff was agin a rubbing his
stomach with a soothing hand, and that he
had drored up one leg. But agin I didn't take
particular notice, looking on myself as called
upon to stimilate public feeling. It being a
lark besides.

' Putting everything together," said Our
Missis, " French Refreshmenting comes to this,
and O it conies to a nice total! First:  eatable
things to eat, and drinkable things to drink."

A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by
me.

"Second: convenience, and even elegance."

Another groan from the young ladies, kep'
up by me.

"Third: moderate charges."

This time, a groan from me, kep' up by the
youne ladies.

"Fourth:—- and here," says Our Missis, " I
claim your angriest sympathy—- attention, common
civility, nay, even politeness!"

.Me, and the young ladies regularly raging
mad all together.

. "And I cannot in conclusion," says Our
Missis, with her spitefullest sneer, " give you a
completer pictur of that despicable nation (after
what I have related), than assuring you that
they wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and
noble independence at Mugby Junction, for a
single mouth, and that they would turn us to
the right-about and put another system in our
places, as soon as look at us; perhaps sooner,
for I do not believe they have the good taste
to care to look at us twice."

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise.
Sniff, bore away by his servile disposition, had
drored up his leg with a higher and a higher
relish, and was now discovered to be waving
his corkscrew over his head. It was at this
moment, that Mrs. Sniff, who had kep' her eye
upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on
her victim. Our Missis followed them both
out, and cries was heard in the sawdust department.

You come into the Down Refreshment Room,
at the Junction, making believe you don't
know me, and I'll pint you out with my right,
thumb over my shoulder which is Our Missis,
and which is Miss Whiff, and which is Miss Piff,
and which is Mrs. Sniff. But you won't get a
chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that
night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I
cannot say; but his corkscrew alone remains, to
bear witness to the servility of his disposition.

No. 1 BRANCH LINE.
THE SIGNAL-MAN.

"Halloa! Below there!"

When he heard a voice thus calling to him,
he was standing at the door of his box, with a
flag in his hand, furled round its short pole.
One would have thought, considering the nature
of the ground, that he could not have doubted
from what quarter the voice came; but,
instead of looking up to where I stood on the
top of the steep cutting nearly over his head,
he turned himself about and looked down the
Line. There was something remarkable in his
manner of doing so, though I could not have said,
for my life, what. But, I know it was remarkable
enough to attract my notice, even though
his figure was foreshortened and shadowed,
down in the deep trench, and mine was high above
him, so steeped in the glow of an angry sunset
that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before
I saw him at all.

"Halloa! Below!"

From looking down the Line, he turned himself
about again, and, raising his eyes, saw my
figure high above him.

"Is there any path by which I can come
down and speak to you?"

He looked up at me without replying, and I
looked down at him without, pressing him too
soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just
then, there came a vague vibration in the earth
and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation,
and an oncoming rush that caused me to
start back, as though it had force to draw me
down. When such vapour as rose to my
height from this rapid train, had passed me and
was skimming away over the landscape, I
looked down again, and saw him re-furling the
flag he had shown while the train went by.

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during
which he seemed to regard me with fixed attention,
he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards