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,
