Mr Jabberjee finds himself in a position of extreme delicacy.
It is an indubitable fact that the discovery of steam is the most marvellous invention of the century. For had it been predicted beforehand that innumerable millions of human beings would be transported with security at a headlong speed for hundreds of miles along a ferruginous track, the most temporary deviation from which would produce the inevitable cataclysm and no end of a smash, the working majority would have expressed their candid opinion of such rhodomontade by cocking the contemptuous snook of incredulity.
And yet it is now the highly accomplished fact and matter of course!
Still, I shall venture to express the opinion that the pleasurability of such railway journeys is largely dependent upon the person who may be our travelling companion, and that some of the companies are not quite careful enough in the exclusion of undesirable fellow-passengers. In proof of which I now beg to submit an exemplary instance from personal experience.
I was recently the payer of a ceremonial visit to a friend of my boyhood, namely, BABOO CHUCKERBUTTY RAM, with whom, finding him at home in his lodgings in a distant suburb, I did hold politely affectionate intercourse for the space of two hours, and then departed, as I had come, by train, and the sole occupant of a second-class dual compartment divided by a low partition.
At the next station the adjoining compartment was suddenly invaded by a portly female of the matronly type, with a rubicund countenance and a bonnet in a dismantled and lopsided condition, who was bundled through the doorway by the impetuosity of a porter, and occupied a seat in immediate opposition to myself.
When the train resumed its motion, I observed that she was contemplating me with a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, and though she was of an unornamental exterior and many years my superior, I constrained myself from motives of merest politeness to do some simperings in return, since only a churlish would grudge such an economical and inexpensive civility.
But whether she was of an unusually ardent temperament, or whether, against my volition, I had invested my simper with an irresistible winsomeness, I cannot tell; but she fell to making nods and becks and wreathed smiles which reduced me to crimsoned sheepishness, and the necessity of looking earnestly out of window at vacancy.
At this she entreated me passionately not to be unkind, inviting me to cross to the next compartment and seat myself by her side; but I did nill this invitation politely, urging that Company's bye-laws countermanded the placing of boots upon the seat-cushions, and my utter inability to pose as a Romeo to scale the barrier.
Whereupon to my lively horror and amazement, she did exclaim, "Then I will come to you, darling!" and commenced to scramble precipitately towards me over the partition!
At which I was in the blue funk, perceiving the arcanum of her design to embrace me, and resolved to leave no stone unturned for the preservation of my bacon. So, at the moment she made the entrance into my compartment, I did simultaneously hop the twig into the next, and she followed in pursuit, and I once more achieved the return with inconceivable agility.
Then, as we were both, like Hamlet, fat and short of breath, I addressed her gaspingly across the barrier, assuring her that it was as if to milk the ram to set her bonnet at a poor young native chap who regarded her with nothing but platonical esteem, and advising her to sit down for the recovery of her wind.
But alack! this speech only operated to inspire her with spretæ injuria formæ, and flourishing a large stalwart umbrella, she exclaimed that she would teach me how to insult a lady.
After that she came floundering once again over the partition, and guarding my loins, I leapt into the next compartment, seeing the affair had become a sauve qui peut, and devil take the hindmost: and at the nick of time, when she was about to descend like a wolf on a fold, I most fortunately perceived a bell-handle provided for such pressing emergencies and rung it with such unparalleled energy, that the train immediately became stationary.
Then, as my female persecutress alighted on the floor of the compartment in the limp condition of a collapse, I stepped across to my original seat, and endeavoured to look as if with withers unwrung. Presently the Guard appeared, and what followed I can best render in the dramatical form of a dialogue:--
The Guard (addressing the ~Elderly Female~, who is sitting smiling with vacuity beneath the bell-pull). So it is you who have sounded the alarm! What is it all about?
The Elderly Female (with warm indignation). Me? I never did! I am too much of the lady. It was that young coloured gentleman in the next compartment.
[_At which the tip of my nose goes down with apprehensiveness._
The Guard. Indeed! A likely story! How could the gentleman ring this bell from where he is?
Myself (with mental presence). Well said, Mister GUARD! The thing is not humanly possible. Rem acu tetigisti!
The Guard. I do not understand Indian, Sir. If you have anything to say about this affair, you had better say it.
Myself (combining discretion with magnanimousness). As a chivalrous, I must decline to bring any accusation against a member of the weaker sex, and my tongue is hermetically sealed.
The Eld. F. It was him who rang the alarm, and not me. He was in this compartment, and I in that.
The Guard. What? have you been playing at Hide-and-seek together, then? But if your story is watertight, he must have rung the bell in a state of abject bodily terror, owing to your chivying him about!
The Eld. F. It is false! I have been well educated, and belong to an excellent family. I merely wanted to kiss him.
The Guard. I see what is your complaint. You have been imbibing the drop too much and will hear of this from the Company. I must trouble you, Mam, for your correct name and address.
Myself (after he had obtained this and was departing). Mister Guard, I do most earnestly entreat you not to abandon me to the tender mercies of this feminine. I am not a proficient in physical courage, and have no desire to test the correctness of Poet POPE'S assertion, that Hell does not possess the fury of a scorned woman. I request to be conducted into a better-populated compartment.
The Guard (with complimentary jocosity). Ah, such young good-looking chaps as you ought to go about in a veil. Come with me, and I'll put you into a smoker-carriage. You won't be run after there!
So the incident was closed, and I did greatly compliment myself upon the sagacity and coolness of head with which I extricated myself from my pretty kettle of fish. For to have denounced myself as the real alarmist would have rendered the affair more, rather than less, discreditable to my feminine companion, and I should have been arraigned before the solemn bar of a police-court magistrate, who might even have made a Star Chamber matter of the incident.
All is well that is well over, but when you have been once bitten, you become doubly bashful. Consequently, this humble self will take care that he does not on any subsequent occasion travel alone in a railway compartment with a female woman.
