tell me that you whistled, when a fellow-
creature was placed in circumstances of such
imminent peril?' 'I made my engine whistle,
I mean,' explained the stoker, apologetically,
'I often speaks of the engine as if
it was me, sir. I shrieked, I say, in a
manner as was a caution to cats; but
not a bit would the old gent either get
out of the way or turn his head, by which
means I cannot help thinking, ever since,
that he was somehow deaf. We reversed, we
put our break on, and we turned off our
steam, but, bless ye, it was ne'er a morsel of
use, for we couldn't have pulled up under a
mile, at least, and just as we neared him, the
poor old gent turned round and threw up his
arms, like this!' 'Gracious, goodness! my
good man,' I interrupted, with a shudder,
'do you mean to say that you ran over him?'
'Lor bless ye, sir, why of course we did.
We was down upon him in a moment—like
one o'clock!'"

The silence which succeeded in our
compartment to this awful narration was broken
by the young commercial traveller, who
observed drily: "Yes, sir; the incident which
you have described so graphically, happened
to my uncle."

The old gentleman's hair evinced a desire
to fly up from the roots: "He was killed, of
course?"

"No. The entire train passed over him,
merely removing the skin from the tip of his
nose. The engine threw him on his back
between the rails, into a hollow part ot the
ballast. If he hadn't been deaf, he would
perhaps have gone mad with the noise."

Another silence ensued, until the young man
was good-natured enough to supply us with
a railway anecdote of a different kind.

"I must premise," he began, and he turned
with a bow to the young lady, "that the
following little experience is not so complimentary
as I could wish to the fair sex; you
must please to believe that the females who
figure in it are, in my opinion, very
exceptional cases. It is seldom, indeed, that any of
the softer race are either a discomfort or a
terror to our own. I scarcely trust myself
to say, for my own part indeed, how very
much the reverse of that they have always
appeared to me."

The young lady bowed in return, nay even
smiled encouragingly. [Her likeness to my
dearest Julia in her youth seemed to be not
so striking as before.]

"I had been staying over the Sunday at
the house of a cousin in Essex, and was
returning to town on Monday morning by the
Eastern Counties Railway to my place of
business. Nothing was further from my
thoughts, or more opposed to my regular
habits, than the idea of smoking a cigar at
that early hour, and least of all was I likely
to attempt it in a railway carriage to the
possible inconvenience of any lady who might
chance to succeed me."

Another bow and another smile—this time
I am happy to say rather a sarcastic one—
from the young woman. [It was quite
astonishing how her likeness to my dearest Julia
in her best days, wore off.]

"The atmosphere of the compartment in
which I found myself alone was, however, so
abominable from the fumes of stale tobacco,
that I was compelled, in self-defence, to
indulge in a weed. There was little danger of
my being disturbed at so early an hour by
the entrance of another passenger, and I lit
my Havannah with the intention of enjoying
it to the end. As a habit smoking is
indefensible, I am aware, madam; but, as an
occasional relaxation I am not inclined to judge
it so harshly. My small portmanteau lay
upon the opposite seat, and afforded a
pleasant elevation for my heels: I lay back with
my railway wrapper around me, and fell into
as pleasant a dream as is permitted to bachelors.
'Forest Gate! Forest Gate!' delivered
with the peculiar official accent, and
accompanied by a rush of cold air, awoke me rudely.
There stood two women—ancient women,
such as travel with band-boxes and huge
umbrellas—glaring on me at the opened
door. To leap up and cast my cigar out of
the other window was the work of an instant,
but of an instant, alas, too late.

"'Calls hisself a gentleman, and has been a
smoking in our carraige,' exclaimed one of
these ladies, tartly. The other was speechless,
but no one can describe the sniff of
disgust with which she treated me. I should
have thought that no nose, short of a trunk,
could have compassed such a note either in
expression or volume.

"'How is a respectable female to seat
herself in such a pottus (pot-house) as this?'
inquired the first speaker.

"'My dear madam,' said I, with humility,
'what occasion is there for such an experiment?
All the other carriages are empty, I
believe.'

"'Dear madam yourself, sir,' retorted the
lady; 'don't dear madam me; I suppose a
fust-class passenger may choose her own
fust-class carraige to travel in?'

"'Ugh!' cried the other, as she followed
her friend into my compartment, 'we shall
be smelt' (she used a stronger word) 'we
shall be smelt to death.'

"As yet it had not struck these wretches to
complain of my conduct to the officials; but,
presently, with a glance full of hatred and
malice, one of the two observed:

"'Can't we punish him for this, Susan? . . .
Guard, guard!'

"But though she put her head out of the
window in a transport at this idea, and gave
it pretty good utterance, the whistle luckily
sounded at the moment, and from all legal
consequences I felt myself to be saved.

"It was very remarkable how, during all
this time and afterwards, these two ancient
ladies persisted in regarding me as a