Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/84

 momentary idea that this is a police-court scene, and that if the ticket is found upon you, you will probably get five years.

Upon this you vehemently protest your innocence.

"I tell you I haven't got it!" you exclaim;—"never seen the gentleman's ticket. You let me go! I"

Here the surprise of your fellow-passengers recalls you to yourself, and you proceed on your exploration. You overhaul the bags, turning everything out on to the floor, muttering curses on the whole railway system of Germany as you do so. Then you feel in your boots. You make everybody near you stand up to see if they are sitting upon it, and you go down on your knees and grovel for it under the seat.

"You didn't throw it out of the window with your sandwiches, did you?" asks your friend.

"No! Do you think I'm a fool?" you answer, irritably. "What should I want to do that for?"

On going systematically over yourself for about the twentieth time, you discover it in your waistcoat pocket, and for the next half-hour you sit and wonder how you came to miss it on the previous nineteen occasions. Meanwhile, during this trying scene, the conduct of the guard has certainly not tended to allay your anxiety and nervousness. All the time that you have been looking for your ticket, he has been doing silly tricks on the step outside, imperilling his life by every means that experience and ingenuity can suggest.

The train is going at the rate of thirty miles an hour, the express speed in Germany, and a bridge comes in sight crossing over the line. On seeing this bridge, the guard, holding on by the window, leans his body as far back as ever it will go. You look at him, and then at the