Doineau was observed, on reaching an elevated
spot, to tear something from his breast. It
was his cross of the Legion of Honour.

TWO FIRST-CLASS PASSENGERS.

I RESIDE upon the Great South Angular line
of railway, and go to town, and return from it
every day; the two journeys consume about
two hours, and having taken them regularly
for the last fifteen years, I must have spent
at least a twelvemonth of my existence in a
first-class carriage; I, therefore, may be
supposed to know a little about the passengers.
I know almost everybody's name who gets into
the train at the half-dozen stations between
my own and London, and whether he will
return by our five-thirty, or not, to a dead
certainty. I know which are the stock-
brokers, and which the lawyers, and which
the bill discounters, and the places of business
of every one of them, although our
acquaintance is only acknowledged by a nod,
nor ever extends beyond the terminus at
London Bridge. When A or B is not in
eleven-forty-five up twice running, we look
for him in the Times, and find him under
Deaths or Bankrupts; and when I myself,
X, am missing, I feel confident that the rest
of the alphabet will as easily understand
what is become of me. We do not pretend to
entertain the sympathetic feelings of a
Rousseau, or a De Lamartine, towards our
friends of the South Angular; our conversations—
which are carried on under cover of
our respective newspapers—are kept
studiously general, for there is no knowing what
religion or politics any of us may profess, or
whether we profess them at all; we discuss
principally the money-market only, and the
murders—trusting that, if there be a homicide
or two in the same carriage, any offensive
remark may be understood not to apply
to the present company. We season-ticket-
holders are of course well-known by sight
to all the company's officers, so that they
rarely give us the trouble of producing our
passes at all, nor is one of us more easily
recognisable than C, the leviathan banker, who
makes the train stop in front of his own
house, where there is no station, to the
concentrated disgust of the three classes. He
is called by us familiarly "the Old Cock;" but,
although he knows this, it is not, of course,
customary to address him by that appellation.
My brother, however, who is a stranger
to the South Angular, going down with me
once upon a visit by the five-thirty, remarked,
unhappily, upon occasion of the usual
stoppage in front of the huge red house, "Oh,
this is where the Old Cock lives, who causes
you so much annoyance, is it?" Whereupon,
the great C, who was sitting opposite,
crimsoned excessively, got out slower than usual,
and has never nodded to me since. A little
after this, a new ticket-collector having been
appointed by the company, he called upon
the whole carriage-full, which included but
one casual passenger, to produce our tickets;
which, with the exception of the Old Cock,
we readily did. He confessed that he had it
in his waistcoat pocket, but that no human
power should induce him to exhibit it; he
harangued the unfortunate collector for nearly
a quarter of an hour (during which the train
was, of course, delayed, and the business-
passengers goaded to frenzy), on the absurdity
of his (C's) being unknown to any person
on the South Angular railway, no matter
how newly-appointed, or how forgetful by
disposition; he took the official to task, just
as though he, himself, the Old Cock, were
the aggrieved party, and as if he were the
Lord Chief Baron addressing some great
offender against the law.

"Nay, but," urged the poor man, "it is
my duty to see your ticket, sir, whether you
have compounded for the year, or not. You
may, for all I am supposed to know to the
contrary, have lent, or even sold your—"

"I sell my ticket? I abuse my privilege?"
cried the old fellow in a terrible voice. "Give
the rascal into my hand, John." (To his son,
who was sitting opposite), whereupon the
collector got off the step with great agility.

"What am I to do?" said the Discomfited,
appealing to the rest of us, "I ought to take
the gentleman into custody."

C had relapsed behind his paper in high
dudgeon, and would reply to no man's
intercession upon this subject further, while his
son John shook his head very decidedly,
saying:

"He won't give it up. I have known him
for forty years. He won't give it up: I know
him so well."

Indeed, so it happened, and after a consultation
among the officials upon the platform,
and a very prolonged stoppage of the train,
the Old Cock was carried on in triumph, still
stertorous with indignation.

These little incidents are the only ones, as
I have said, which to my knowledge ever
interfered with the strictly business character of
our daily transits; but when I have chanced
to be detained longer than usual in town, and
to miss the five-thirty, I have met with more
interesting companions. Three times, by the
evening express, I have travelled with a
gentleman bound for the other side of the Channel,
from whom I always parted with regret:
a middle-aged, rather ruddy-complexioned
man, spare and tall, with an intimate
acquaintance with foreign countries, and a fund
of stories of adventure, which it was very
pleasant to draw upon. Though we exchanged
cards, Mr. Settler never told me what was
his profession; but I set him down as a
traveller for some great house, at a salary,
perhaps, of seven- hundred a-year, and I am
seldom wrong in such calculations. He carried
a particularly beautiful Geneva watch, with
turquoise figures on it, which must have cost
forty guineas, at the very least, but his dress