visitors are packed like sardines into railway trains. They pin
their tickets to their coats and promptly go to sleep. At every
station the railway officials stumble up and down the trains with
lanterns. The last feeble effort of the more wakeful reveller,
before he adds himself to the heap of snoring humanity on the floor
of the railway carriage, is to change the tickets of a couple of his
unconscious companions. In this way gentlemen for the east are
dragged out by the legs at junctions, and packed into trains going
west; while southern fathers are shot out in the chill dawn at lonely
northern stations, to find themselves greeted with enthusiasm by
other people's families.

At Binche, they say--I have not counted them myself--that thirty
thousand maskers can be seen dancing at the same time. When they are
not dancing they are throwing oranges at one another. The houses
board up their windows. The restaurants take down their mirrors and
hide away the glasses. If I went masquerading at Binche I should go
as a man in armour, period Henry the Seventh.

"Doesn't it hurt," I asked a lady who had been there, "having oranges
thrown at you? Which sort do they use, speaking generally, those
fine juicy ones--Javas I think you call them--or the little hard
brand with skins like a nutmeg-grater? And if both sorts are used
indiscriminately, which do you personally prefer?"

"The smart people," she answered, "they are the same everywhere--they
must be extravagant--they use the Java orange. If it hits you in the
back I prefer the Java orange. It is more messy than the other, but
it does not leave you with that curious sensation of having been
temporarily stunned. Most people, of course, make use of the small