A considerable volume of tobacco smoke, which I happened to swallow at this point-as bad and pungent stuff as ever came out of a pipe-startled me out of my arcadian picture into a violent fit of coughing. I am no new hand at smoking; I have seen some service under the colours of the fragrant weed; but I could not stand this. No country that I know of can compete with Switzerland for bad and cheap tobacco. The puff of offensive smoke came from an old peasant in Sunday clothes, my immediate vis-à-vis; his neighbour in the same seat (there are only two places in each) was a younger peasant whose cigar was nearly as bad as the other's pipe. Now, the wind being against us, I and the person next to me, an old lady, did not miss an atom of the two nuisances. The old lady did her best, by frequent applications of her handkerchief to her mouth and nostrils, to keep out the infection-a poor palliative, after all, for one must breathe.

I felt for the lady, and there was some merit in that, for a more repulsive face I never met in my life. Smoking

being lawful in second-class carriages, remonstrating with the men was entirely out of the question. I looked about instead, in search of a less exposed situation for my neighbour, but I saw none. Clouds of the acrid incense whirled over every corner of the carriage. Out of the seventeen men present-I counted them-only four were not puffing like chimneys. How the ladies, six in number, must have fared in the foul atmosphere, I leave you to imagine; one or two might be hardened to it, but the majority were evidently ill at ease.

My dear fellow-smokers, is the cigar a new fire of Vesta, to be kept burning for ever, or is smoking as essential a function of life as breathing, and as such to be necessarily indulged in at all times, and in all places, whatever the inconvenience to others? If so, I hold my tongue; if not, allow me to submit that a few hours' intermission in the puffing occupation would only enhance its pleasure for you, and prevent your spoiling that of others. Do you think

that playing the part of a Westphalian-ham can be a pleasing and flattering position for a woman? The fair sex keeps us already enough at crinoline's length-is it wise, is it good policy to widen the distance between the two sexes? I know of no more active dissolvents of all social intercourse than the crinoline and the cigar. This tendency of each half of what nature ordained to form a whole, to isolate itself in its cloud of gauze or smoke, is one of the most ominous signs of the time. Let this state of things go on for ten years longer, and farewell civilization! barbarism gets in afresh....

The train had stopped at a station just as I was concluding my apostrophe. I beg pardon for my mental soliloquies and apostrophes; they are an inveterate weakness with me. I will drop them, if I can; at all events, make them short. Well-some travellers went out, my two vis-à-vis among others, and some came in. One of these last, a young lady in mourning, hurried in, threw on the now empty seat in front of me a small travelling bag and her parasol, and, leaning out of the window, exchanged a few more farewells and shakings of the hand with an elderly lady and a young girl standing on the platform. Without being positively handsome, she had a very sweet countenance, and a voice to match; but what chiefly attracted me in her was her evident extreme timidity. She looked from head to foot one nervous twitch.

Presently the train moved slowly on ; and, after some last flourishes of the hand, and waving of the handkerchief, the new comer left the window, and sat down; in doing which she noticed a parasol lying upon her luggage, stared at it, took it up, went to the window, beckoned towards the platform, and, to my dismay, threw it upon the line.

I say to my dismay, because the parasol in question did not belong to the young, but to the old lady, whom, but a moment before, I had seen place it on the younger's travelling bag.

"My parasol!" screamed the old lady; but it was too late.

"Your parasol?" echoed the young one, aghast.

"Yes, mine; why do you throw other people's things out of window, I should like to know?"

The new comer blushed scarlet, and stammered forth,

"I beg your pardon . . . I took it for my friend's... I had it in my hand upon the platform... it is the same colour... I thought I had forgotten.. I.. I.." and here, probably struck at once by the retrospective ludicrousness of her action, the young lady burst out laughing.

"A witty trick, in fact, and worth a good deal of merriment," resumed my exasperated neighbour; "it may cost you dear, though."

It might have cost her her life, but the lady in black could not have stopped laughing. The fit was irresistible. She covered her face with her handkerchief, and fairly gave way.

I hazarded a word of extenuation. "Madam," said I to my neighbour, "there is no offence where there is no intention of giving any, and you know that laughing is a contraction of the diaphragm quite independent of the will."

"Much obliged to you for the information," said the old lady, dryly, "but, with your leave, it is not explanations that I want, but my parasol."

"Take mine," said the offender, who had now recovered her seriousness and speech, "or set upon yours the price you think proper, and I will pay it down."

"I want my parasol, not yours, or your money," insisted the aggrieved party.

A bright idea, if not a new one, shot through my brain at this critical juncture-to telegraph for the parasol to the station at which it had been dropped, and desire it to be sent to that where the owner was to stop. The proposal, after a little demur, was acquiesced in by the old lady, who accordingly gave her name and address, with a very ill grace, though; a guard was called, the mistake explained to him, a telegram

concocted, and, on our arrival at the nearest station, duly despatched.

I need scarcely say that the conspicuous part I enacted in the transaction had won for me from my sweetfaced vis-à-vis many thanks and soft smiles-a coin, this last, of which I am very greedy, especially from gentle-looking faces.

"And my ticket?" cried the old lady on a sudden.

"What ticket?" asked we.

"My railway ticket," said she; "I had put it in the folds of my parasol."

Hang the parasol and its folds, thought I; but I only said, "You will find it with the parasol."

"Ah, indeed!" sneered the hag, "and remain a prisoner at the station till the parasol arrives, if it ever does. No such thing. This young lady must have the goodness to accompany me to

station, and there account for my missing ticket, or pay for it." "I'll pay for it immediately," said the young lady.

"I told you I would have no money," replied the sour-visaged one; "besides, I don't know how much they may charge -perhaps the amount of the whole line."

"But I cannot go so far as station," protested the young lady, now ready to cry.

"We'll see," rejoined the other.

All the little chivalry still left in my old bones stood up in arms at sight of the dewdrops gathering in the sweet eyes, which had looked upon me so gratefully; and, acting upon the impulse of the moment, I turned to her and said, "Will you empower me to act as your representative in this affair?”

"With all my heart," said she.

"Then," continued I, addressing my ill-favoured neighbour, "I'll come with you as far as station, and settle about the ticket in the name of this lady."

"My business is with her, and not with you," was the ungracious answer.

"It will be, in fact, with the lady," I rejoined, "since I shall only act as her proxy. Consider, Madam," I went on,

"that, if you have an incontestable right to recover your ticket or its price, you have none to force her out of her way, probably to her great inconvenience. If you still object to my proposal, I shall be obliged to put the matter in the hands of the first station-master, or whatever authority we may meet in our way, and vindicate for this young lady her liberty of locomotion."

My little speech obtained no other answer than a sarcastic grin, which left me in some apprehension of a disagreeable scene when the moment should come for the lady in black to leave the train. My anticipations in this respect were fortunately belied by the event. My protégée was allowed to alight at her own time and place-giving me previously her address, that I might let her know what I paid, and cordially shaking hands with me, and renewing her apologies to the old lady-all this without the least opposition from the latter, who, on the contrary, wished her all manner of happiness with an ironical emphasis.

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Why don't you go too?" asked my neighbour, just as the train was beginning to move on, abruptly turning upon me a set of features made ten thousand times uglier by concentrated malice.

"Why should I?" I replied, staring my questioner in the face.

"Youth is so charming," said she; "you seemed mightily interested in her."

"No more interested in that young lady than in any other of my fellowcreatures whom I take to be good, and to be in want of some protection," said I.

"No more than that?" sneered she. "Well, as I lay no claim to'goodness, and I am, thank God, in no want of protection, the sooner we part company the better."

"I have no wish to improve your acquaintance," said I; "the moment I have set you right with your ticket, you may rely on my readiest obedience to your suggestion."

She grinned her ugliest grin, and said, "You are very green for a man of your time of life. Do you suppose me such a goose as to put a ticket in the

folds of a parasol? I only wanted to pay off the silly minx for her impertinence, by scaring her out of her wits. Here's my ticket-you may go."

"So I will. I beg you in the meantime to receive my compliments upon your ingenuity." So saying, I bowed, and removed to a further seat.

I can bear a good deal of heat-the day was close and sultry-but the presence of this extraordinary creature, after the incredible dialogue just reported, made the carriage too hot for me. I longed to be out of it. Besides, I was thirsty and hungry; and, having no determined destination, all places were alike to me, so that I could find wherewithal to eat and drink. Accordingly, down I jumped at the next station.

The flaxen hair and the harsh sounds round me made me forthwith sensible that I was still in some part of German Switzerland. I asked, in French, of one of my many fellow-travellers who had alighted at the same place with me, if there was any hotel near at hand. The answer was a rather harsh name, whose termination in bad was all that I could catch. I beckoned to a boy to carry my bag, and, by a very expressive pantomime, gave him a broad hint of my wish for a meal. The boy, with a knowing nod, as much as to say, "All right,' repeated the word ending in bad, and moved on.

An omnibus was filling fast at the back of the station-most likely for this cabalistic bad, as I guessed. Unluckily, I reached it just in time to see the driver, a white-haired young man in a smock frock, bang the door to, and climb up to his seat. So on I went under a broiling sun. We cut across some fields, crossed a road, struck through some fields again, crossed another road, and entered a shady avenue, on the right of which stood a finger-post with the inscription, "Schranksteinbad, two minutes." I am just enough of a German scholar to know that Bad means Baths, and I was not at all sorry to acquire the certainty that I was on my way to a Spa-perhaps the very quiet nook I was sighing after; who could tell? Provided, I hastened

to add in petto, all these folks before and behind me, and those that are in the omnibus, which seems coming this way, are not bent on the same destination; for, in that case, farewell quiet nook!

Α

Another minute brought me in sight of the Establishment, a huge long building, two storeys high. There were people walking about the grounds; there were people sitting at tables in the shade. skittle ground in full activity appeared on my left. Worst of all, snatches of spirited dancing music now caught my ear. Alas! alas! it was not yet my phoenix. Lucky enough if I could secure a dinner without doing battle for it, as at the what-is-its-name, Kulm !

The omnibus coming up briskly, I had to jerk out of the way in some hurry, and found myself cheek-by-jowl with a man, who stood by a horse harnessed to a gig, a little to the left of the avenue, in front of the house. The man struck me instantly by the strange conformation of his head. His, and that of the horse he stood by, presented as close a likeness as the head of a human being, and that of an animal, possibly can. The similarity at all events was such as to make me stop, all flushed with heat and hurry as I was, to look a while at this natural curiosity. both creatures the same flatness and narrowness of the upper, the same development of the lower part of the facial angle, the same tawny hue, the same immobility of features! The biped only wanted the quadruped's ears to make them a perfect pair.

In

It took me some effort to detach myself from this sight, and proceed to the foot of the flight of steps, where a rather rickety waiter, and a pretty looking chambermaid-such at least I took her to be-were doing the honours of the house to the load of visitors emerging from the omnibus.

"Can I have something to eat?" I asked of the maid, when my turn

came.

"Certainly," said she; "shall I take your bag?"

"Thank you. I am not sure of

stopping, but, if you have a spare room for me, where I can wash my hands, I shall be obliged to you."

"All the Establishment is at your disposal," returned the chambermaid courteously; "be so good as to walk this way."

I followed her steps, and said, to sound the ground, "You are very busy, I see-"

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Always more or less so on Sundays," was the answer.

"Your house is full, I suppose?" "Pardon me," she replied, with a good-natured smile; "quite empty." "Do you mean to say that you have no boarders at all?"

"Just so; not one as yet."

By Jove!" cried I; "then I stay." "You'll bring us good luck, if you do," said she.

"But all these people about?" asked I.

"Birds of passage, sir; by nightfall they'll all be gone. Will you have a room on the first or the second floor, back or front, with or without a sofa?"

I pondered a little, and replied, "On the second floor, one in front, and with a sofa."

"The floor and the look-out make no difference in the charge," explained my conductress ; "but the sofa does. We charge ten centimes a day extra for that. In the beginning, we had but few of them, and everybody would have one. Now that we have plenty, many people turn up their noses at them because of the extra centimes. That is why we warn strangers beforehand."

The primitiveness of the notion, with the extreme moderateness of the extra charge, made me anticipate a homely style in the other arrangements of the house, and corresponding prices.

"Will this room suit you?" inquired my attendant, opening one. It was a neat little cell with the simplest of furniture-a red sofa, three wooden chairs, a curtainless bed, with a big eider-down quilt upon it, a small writing table in the shape of a half-moon, a square one for washing, and a closet in the wall instead of a chest of drawers.

"This will do perfectly," said I; "now, will you see to my dinner, please? Anything plain and good. I'll be down in ten minutes."

"Shall I lay the cloth in the large hall, or in the breakfast-room?"

"Never mind where, provided you wait upon me."

"Willingly," said she, with a curtsey; "we must make as much as we can of our first boarder. But, then, it must be in the large hall."

Thus chance, independent of my will, had led me by the hand to the haven which all my industry had failed to

secure.

CHAPTER II.

CELI AND SULDI.

I SUPPOSE it was the vein of optimism in which my good luck had put me, that made me find the dinner excellent, my waiting maid a paragon of obligingness, and the coup d'œil before me full of interest. Imagine a lofty hall with plenty of people in it, bustling about in couples, in groups, some few alone, the majority sitting down to their fritters or pancakes, their wine or coffee-imagine at the end of this hall, a lesser one, thronged with dancers, waltzing or galloping to the sound of merry music; and you can form an idea of the operacomique-like scene which enlivened my dinner, and which, according to my fair informant, graced every summer Sunday the precincts of Schranksteinbad. Its extensive grounds and capacious accommodation indoors made it, as it seems, the favourite resort of the youth of both sexes for twenty miles round. A wide balcony, set out with tables and benches, ran all the length of the two halls.

There was not much of the picturesque in the costumes, or of prepossessing in the mien, or of refined in the manners of the company, but something very taking in the naïve entireness of their enjoyment. The temple of Terpsichore, in spite of Jungfrau Madeleine's repeated attempts to entice me to it (Madeleine was the name of the pretty maid), looked too chokeful to be tempt

ing; so I reserved my visit to it for another moment, and went out instead, in quest of a little corner in the open air, where I could sip my coffee and have my cigar-that indispensible complement to all joys for a true smoker. I looked round from the threshold, and— what was the first thing I saw? My man of an hour ago, standing on the same spot, minding the same, or another horse and gig (to the identity of the two latter I could not have sworn), and staring before him.

I took my place at one of the two tables which flanked the wicket of a garden, on the left of the avenue, in front of where he stood, so as to command a full view of his face and make it my study. This time it was less its confirmed equine character, than its stony impassivity, which struck me. There it remained before me, like a shut book, a perfect negation of all thought or feeling whatever. Much and closely as I observed it, not the least trace of impatience or weariness was visible. And yet, one does not stand at the head of a horse for an hour and a half, as he had done, without feeling a little impatient, if the job be unusual, or a little weary, if it be habitual. And that it was the last, I rather surmised, from the long row of one-horse carriages reaching from the door of the house to the stables-a separate building at a little distance on the right.

Was this impassivity acquired or natural, stoicism or dulness? Whatever it was, I began to feel it somewhat grating to my nerves. The lie is not given to the laws of nature in our very face, without calling forth an instinctive protest. It is the fault of the mask, I concluded at the end of another hour; the man, if man he be, must be fretting inwardly; let us force an answer from this Sphinx. And with this view I spoke to him in French, expressing a misgiving that the owner of the gig might perchance have had a fit of apoplexy. The answer was what, alas! I had too well anticipateda negative shake of the head, and "I verstoh's nitt," in the most unmitigated patois of the country.