The Pearl/Volume 18/The Disagreeable Passenger

A Yorkshire excursion train the other day contained a rather morose-looking individual, who being offered the newspaper, grumpily replied: "I don't read!"

"Will you take a cigar then?" asked another passenger.

"I don't smoke!"

Presently a third offered him his flask.

"I don't drink!"

This happened in a carriage with open compartments, so a clergyman who had overheard it all and thinking that perhaps a little intellectual conversation would be more to his taste, leaned over the back of the seat and said: "Would you like to step over here with us, there is only myself, wife and daughter?"

"I don't fuck!" was all he got for his kind intention.

And we need not say that he was both disgusted and chagrined as the laughter of the others pealed through the carriage.