LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1388, 27 July 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A STRANGE MISADVENTURE. [“ Chambers’ Journal,”] ( Concluded.) I am to have a comp, nioi after all. w ell, so much the better. It will be somebody to talk to and pass the time. I wonder if lie if? as taciturn as my companions at the outset of the journey. Evidently not; he is recovering his b-eath after his hurry, and is preparing to address me ‘ I’ll trouble you to put that cigar out, sir I I object to smoke.’ ‘ But, sir, ’ * Here, guard ! Tell this person to put his cigar out at once. This is not a smoking compartment.’ ‘ Plenty of room in the next carriage, sir. Would you mind stepping in there ?’ ‘Yes; I would mind. By-law No. 7 says, &c., &c.,’ says my companion, standing blocking up the doorway and arguing with the guard. ‘Very sorry, sir; but you must put out your cigar.’ ‘ Can’t I go into the next carriage ?’ * Two ladies in there, sir—old ladies !’ * Have you any empty compartment ?’ ‘ We’re just off, sir,’ says the guard, slamming the door, and the next minute we are spinning on our way to Peterborough. Shall 1 put out my cigar ? I have been alluded to as a ‘person.’ I have been ad dressed in a dictatorial manner, which has the very reverse of a soothing influence on me. I feel ruffled and obstinate. Had I been asked politely, my Havana had been out of the window in a twinkling. Shall I put it out or infringe by-law No. 7, and be fined forty shillings I I will finish my cigar, and abide by the consequences. My companion is evidently as unaccustomed to opposition as I am to dictation, and for a few minutes he stares at me dum founded, then he lets fly his own version of King James’s Counterblast against Tobacco. On my part I preserve an obstinate silence. My companion pulls up the window on his side ; I put up that on mine, which produces a violent fit of coughing on his part, when down go both windows in a hurry. We have arrived at Peterbourgh, and the guard is again called. Ihave almost finished ray cigar, and I throw the end away. My companion cannot let the matter rest, however, and when wo are started again, ho reads me another lecture, couched in such unacceptable terms that for reply I light another cigar.

* Sir, here is my card t and I insist upon knowing your name address.’ I take his card, open my card case, put his card in, and return the case to my pocket without giving him my card in exchange. I finish my cigar amidst a volley of threats of getting my name and address by force. We are at Finsbury Park now, and tickets are being collected. This is the nearest station to my home, and hero I intend to leave the train. My companion follows me up the platform, and calls the guard to take my name and address Being under the scrutiny of the other passengers, who evidently think I have got into trouble for cardsharping, and having made np my mind to pay the penalty, I lose no time in giving my card.

At home I am received with open arms, and I am hurried into the dining room by ray boys to inspect a device over the sideboard for my especial benefit— ‘ Welcome’ in blue letters on a white ground. My wife is full of inquiries after all our friends in Edinburgh, and what sort of a journey I have had.

Having informed her that individually and collectively all our friends arc as well as could be expected, considering the wintry weather they have had, and that all were as kind and hospitable as ever, I briefly tell her of my smoking adventure. ‘ And who was your companion ?’ asks my wife, ‘ How should I know.?’

‘Why, you have his card.’ ‘To be sure; I quite forgot that,’say I, producing my card case. I search it thr mgh carefully, but no card, other than my own, can T find.

‘I know I put it in here. Why, bless me ! I must have given it to the guard instead of my own. How odd!’ I have almost dismissed the adventure from my mind, when a few days later my wife in skimming over the paper at the breakfast table breaks out into a merry laugh. What on earth can she fiud so amusing in any other than the ‘Agony’ column ? which I can see is not the portion under perusal. It is the police reports, and she hands me the paper, pointing out the place for my attention. ‘ At the Police Court, J B of Verandah House, Crouch Hill, was summoned by the Great Northern Railway Company for smoking in a carriage, to the annoyance of other passenger?. The guard having proved identify, and the accused’s card given up by himself, being put in as corroborative evidence, the magistrate asked the defendant if he had am thing to say in reply. An attempt was made to prove that the accused was really the complainant, and that he had given the card produced to the real offender, which the magistrate characterised as an impudently lame defence, and fined the defendant in the full renalty of forty shil'ings.’ ‘ My dear,’ says my wife, < Well, my dear ?’ I respond. ‘ Verandah House is that pretty place that has just been finished a little farther up the hill. Don’t you think that you behaved in rather an unnexghbourly manner ?’ ‘ Did our neighbour behave any better?’ ‘At all events he has suffered unjustly. This cannot be allowed to pa?s. Don’t you think you had better call and apologise ?’ ‘ Well, I’ll think about it.’ On ray way home from the station that evening I rang the visitor’s bell at Verandah House, and was iu due course ushered into the presence of the eccentric proprietor Our recognition was mutual ; and as ray neighbour approached me, I prepared to put myself into a defensive attitude. His hand, however, was not extended to commit an assault, and before I could stammer out the elaborate apology I had prepared, I was forestalled by a hearty shake of the hand and an apology from the quondam fire-eater. Under such circumstances it may easily be guessed that a satis f actory understanding was soon arrived at, and an exchange of invitations to spend the remainder of the evening in each other’s society ended in my returning home with my neighbour as my guest. lam very partial to an after dinner cigar Having already committed myself, however, I determined to practice a little self-denial; but_ what was my surprise, when I had carried off my neighbour to my study to shew him a few rare volumes of which I am almost as proud as I am of my children, to see my friend produce a cigar-case, and not only offer me the meacs of indulging my favorite weakness, but himself preparing to join iu it. • You may well look surprised, said he ; ‘ but iu truth lam an inveterate smoker. I passed many years of my life in Havana, and these cigars—which I venture to say you wiU find remarkably good—are of my own importing ’ ' But you expressed such contrary opinion, the other day.’ ‘The fact is, that when in the West Indies I suffered from a severe attack of yellow fever, and the remedial appliances so affected my mind that for some time 1 had to be placed under restraint. Thanks to the skill of a clever practitioner, I am cured ; but my old malady still shows itself in occasional fits of uncontrollable obstinacy.’ ‘ I beg your pardon,’ say Ij ‘ but are you not a military man ?’ * Yes ; I was captain In the th R<gimeat.’

Captain B !My mind reports to the story I had heard on the morning of our first meeting. But was our friend as thoroughly cured as his ex-keeper seemed to imagine? I cant say, but I know that he is an excellent neighbour, lie treats his misadventure as a capital joke ; and it is likely to be a stock story for the rest of his life how' he was fined forty shillings by the railway company, because another passenger had infringed by-law No. 7 !