proceeding at last to help himself, as seems to be the custom in his own
country, when Our Missis, with her hair almost a-coming un-Bandolined
with rage, and her eyes omitting sparks, flew at him, cotched the
decanter out of his hand, and said, "Put it down! I won't allow that!"
The foreigner turned pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in
front of him, his hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed:
"Ah! Is it possible, this! That these disdaineous females and this
ferocious old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to
empoison the voyagers, but to affront them! Great Heaven! How arrives
it? The English people. Or is he then a slave? Or idiot?" Another
time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the sawdust and spit it
out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and had tried in vain to
sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, and had been rather extra
Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, when, as the bell was ringing and
he paid Our Missis, he says, very loud and good-tempered: "I tell Yew
what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. Theer! I la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha'
seen most things, for I hail from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic
Ocean, and I haive travelled right slick over the Limited, head on
through Jeerusalemm and the East, and likeways France and Italy, Europe
Old World, and am now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village; but
such an Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's
solid and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet! And if
I hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchical Creation, in finding Yew
and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, all as
aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not absolute Loo-
naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and Frizzle to the
innermostest grit! Wheerfur--Theer!--I la'af! I Dew, ma'arm. I la'af!"
And so he went, stamping and shaking his sides, along the platform all
the way to his own compartment.