intervals may perhaps have been longer, a ghostly face would appear
at the carriage-window, and ask to see our tickets.

Whenever a German railway-guard feels lonesome, and does not know
what else to do with himself, he takes a walk round the train, and
gets the passengers to show him their tickets, after which he
returns to his box cheered and refreshed. Some people rave about
sunsets and mountains and old masters; but to the German railway-
guard the world can show nothing more satisfying, more inspiring,
than the sight of a railway-ticket.

Nearly all the German railway officials have this same craving for
tickets. If only they get somebody to show them a railway-ticket,
they are happy. It seemed a harmless weakness of theirs, and B. and
I decided that it would be only kind to humour them in it during our
stay.

Accordingly, whenever we saw a German railway official standing
about, looking sad and weary, we went up to him and showed him our
tickets. The sight was like a ray of sunshine to him; and all his
care was immediately forgotten. If we had not a ticket with us at
the time, we went and bought one. A mere single third to the next
station would gladden him sufficiently in most cases; but if the
poor fellow appeared very woe-begone, and as if he wanted more than
ordinary cheering up, we got him a second-class return.

For the purpose of our journey to Ober-Ammergau and back, we each
carried with us a folio containing some ten or twelve first-class
tickets between different towns, covering in all a distance of some
thousand miles; and one afternoon, at Munich, seeing a railway