"Oh! My thoughts were not here for the moment. Yes. Yes. Those two
portmanteaus are mine. Are you a Porter?"

"On Porter's wages, sir. But I am Lamps."

The traveller looked a little confused.

"Who did you say you are?"

"Lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as farther explanation.

"Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here?"

"Not exactly here, sir. There is a Refreshment Room here, but--" Lamps,
with a mighty serious look, gave his head a warning roll that plainly
added--"but it's a blessed circumstance for you that it's not open."

"You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available?"

"Ask your pardon, sir. If it was--?"

"Open?"

"It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give my opinion
on any of the company's toepics,"--he pronounced it more like
toothpicks,--"beyond lamp-ile and cottons," returned Lamps in a
confidential tone; "but, speaking as a man, I wouldn't recommend my
father (if he was to come to life again) to go and try how he'd be
treated at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking as a man, no, I would