“Does anybody doubt my patriotism?” asked the Colonel. We all hastened to say that we should as soon doubt our own existence. Had he not made a speech no longer ago than last Fourth of July, showing that America was destined to have a population of 1,000,000,000 and that England was on the verge of extinction? Had he not perilled his life in the cause of freedom, and was he not tireless in insisting that every Chinaman should be driven out of the United States? If there ever was one American more patriotic than another it was the Colonel.
“Well, then,” continued the speaker, “you won’t misunderstand me when I say that the American railroad car is a hundred times more dangerous than these European compartment cars. In thirty years there have been just four felonious assaults in English railroad cars. There have been a few more than that in France, but not a single one in Germany. Now, I admit that you are in no danger of being shot in an American car, unless, of course, two gentlemen happen to have a difficulty and shoot wild, or unless the train is held up by train robbers who are a little too free with their weapons. But I do say that the way in which we heat our cars with coal-stoves kills thousands of passengers with pneumonia and burns hundreds alive when the trains are wrecked.
“You see, I’ve looked into this thing and I’ve got the statistics down fine. I’m the only man I know who ever had any trouble with a passenger while travelling in Europe, and I don’t mind telling you about it, although it will be giving myself away. Kindly push me over those matches, will you? These French cigars take a lot of fuel, and you have to encourage them with a match every three minutes if you expect them to burn.
“When I was over here in Paris, ten years ago, there was a fellow here from Chicago who was trying to introduce American cars, and he gave me a pamphlet he had got up showing the horrors of the compartment system. It told of half a dozen murders, fifteen assaults, eleven cases of blackmail, and four cases in which a solitary traveller was shut up in a compartment with a lunatic—all these incidents having occurred on European railways. I was on my way to Egypt, and when I had read the pamphlet I began to wonder if I should ever manage to live through the railroad journey without being killed, or blackmailed, or lunaticked, or something of the kind. You see, I believed the stories then, though I know now that about half of them were false.
“I took the express train—the Peninsular and Oriental they call it—from Paris about twelve o’clock one night. I went early to the train, and until just before we started I thought I was going to have the compartment to myself. All at once a man very much out of breath jumped in, the door was slammed, and we were off.
“‘DOES ANYBODY DOUBT MY PATRIOTISM?’ ASKED THE COLONEL.”
“I didn’t like the looks of the fellow. He was a Frenchman, though of course that wasn’t his fault. He was small but wiry-looking, and his sharp black eyes were not the style of eyes that inspires me with confidence. Then he had no baggage except a small paper parcel, which was queer, considering that the train was a long-distance one. I kept a close watch on him for a while, thinking that he might be one of the professional lunatics that, according to the Chicago chap’s pamphlet, are always travelling in order to frighten solitary passengers; but after a while I became so sleepy that I decided to lie down and take a nap and my chances of being killed at the same time. Just then the man gets up and begins to talk to me in French.
“Now, I needn’t say that I don’t speak French nor any of those fool languages. Good American is good enough for me. One reason why these Europeans have been enslaved for centuries is that they can’t make each other understand their views without shouting at the top of their lungs, and so bringing the police about their ears. But I did happen to know, or thought I did, the French word for going to sleep, and so I thought I would just heave it at this chap so that he would understand that I didn’t require his conversation. I have always found that if you talk to a Frenchman in English very slowly and impressively he will get the hang of what you say. That is, if he isn’t a cabman. You can’t get an idea into a French cabman’s head unless you work it in with a club. So I said to the fellow in the train: ‘My friend! I haven’t any time to waste in general conversation. I’m going to sleep, and I advise you to do the same. You can tell me all about your institutions and your revolutions and things in the morning.’ And then I hove in the French word ‘cochon,’ which I supposed meant something like ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’
“The fellow staggered back as if I had hit him, and then he began to sling the whole French language at me. I calculate that he could have given Bob Ingersoll fifty points in a hundred and beaten him, and, as you know, Bob is the ablest vituperator now in the business. The Frenchman kept on raving and getting madder and madder every minute, and I saw that there wasn’t the least doubt that he was a dangerous lunatic.
“I stood up and let him talk for a while, occasionally saying ‘non comprenny’ and ‘cochon,’ just to soothe him, but presently he came close to me and shook his fist in my face. This was too much, so I took him by the shoulders and slammed him down in a corner seat, and said, ‘You sit there, sonny, and keep quiet, or you’ll end by getting me to argue with you.’ But the minute I let go of him he bounced up again as if he was made of India-rubber, and came at me just as a terrier will come at a horse, pretending that he is going to tear him into small pieces. So I slammed him down into his corner again, and said, ‘This foolishness has gone far enough, and we’ll have it stopped right here. Didn’t you hear me say cochon? I’m going to cochon, and you’d better cochon, too, or I’ll make you.’
“This time he jumped up as soon as I had let go of him and tried to hit me. Of course I didn’t want to hit so small a chap, letting alone that he knew no more about handling his fists than the angel Gabriel, so I just took and twisted his arms behind his back and tied them with a shawl-strap. Then, seeing as he showed a reprehensible disposition to kick, I put another strap around his legs and stretched him on the seat with his bundle under his head. But kindness was thrown away on that Frenchman. He tried to bite me, and not content with spitting like a cat, he set up a yell that was the next thing to the locomotive whistle, and rolling off the seat tried to kick at me with both legs.
“I let him exercise himself for a few minutes, while I got my hair-brush and some twine out of my bag. Then I put him back on the seat, gagged him with the handle of the hair-brush, and lashed him to the arm of the seat so that he couldn’t roll off. Then I offered him a drink, but he shook his head, not having any manners, in spite of what people say about the politeness of Frenchmen. Having secured my own safety and made the lunatic reasonably comfortable, I turned in and went to sleep. I must have slept very sound, for although the train stopped two or three times during the night, I never woke up until we pulled up for breakfast about eight o’clock the next morning. I sat up and looked at my lunatic, who was wide awake and glaring at me. I wished him good-morning, for I couldn’t bear any grudge against a crazy man; but he only rolled his eyes and seemed madder than ever, so I let him lie and got out of the train.
“Two policemen were walking up and down the platform, and I took one of them by the arm and led him to the car, explaining what had happened. I don’t know whether he understood or not, but he pretended that he didn’t.
“As soon as he saw the lunatic there was a pretty row. He called two more policemen, and after they had ungagged the fellow they hauled us both before a magistrate who had his office in the railroad station. At least he acted like a magistrate, although he wore the same uniform as the policemen. Here the fellow I had travelled with was allowed to speak first, and he charged me, as I afterward found, with having first insulted and then assaulted him. He said he rather thought I was a lunatic, but at any rate he must have my blood. Then an interpreter was sent for, and I told my story, but I could see that nobody believed me.
“THEY HAULED US BOTH BEFORE A MAGISTRATE.”
“‘Accused,’ said the magistrate very sternly, ‘you called this gentleman a pig. What was your motive?’
“Of course I swore that I had never called him a pig, that I hardly knew half a dozen words of his infamous language, and that I had used only one of those. Being asked what it was, I said ‘cochon.’ And then that idiot ordered me to be locked up.
“By rare good luck there happened to be an American secretary of legation on the train. You know him. It was Hiram G. Trask, of West Centreopolis. He recognized me, and it didn’t take him very long to explain the whole affair. It seems that the Frenchman had asked me if I objected to smoking, and when I tried to tell him that we ought to go to sleep, I said ‘cochon,’ which means pig, instead of ‘couchons,’ which was the word I ought to have used. He was no more of a lunatic than a Frenchman naturally is, but he was disgusted at being carried two hundred miles beyond his destination, which was the first stopping-place beyond Paris, and I don’t know that I blame him very much. And then, too, he seemed to feel that his dignity had been some ruffled by being gagged and bound. However, both he and the policemen listened to reason, and the man agreed to compromise on my paying him damages and withdrawing the assertion that he was morally or physically a pig. The affair cost considerable, but it taught me a lesson, and I have quit believing that you can’t travel in a European railroad car without being locked up with a lunatic or a murderer. I admit that the whole trouble was due to my foolishness. When the Frenchman began to make a row, I ought to have killed him and dropped the body out of the door, instead of fooling with him half the night and trying to make him comfortable. But we can’t always command presence of mind or see just where our duty lies at all times.”
