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Page 97
We divided up on the way to Mayence, and Mr. and Mrs. Malt came into
the compartment with the Senator, momma, and me. Mr. Malt was
unsatisfied with poppa's revenge on Bawlinbuttons, and proposed to make
things awkward further for the guard. He said it could be done very
simply, by a disagreement between himself and the Senator as to whether
the windows should be open or shut. He said he had heard of a German
guard put to the most enjoyable misery by such a dispute, not knowing
the language of the disputants and being forced to arbitrate upon their
respective demands. Mr. Malt had laughed at the Senator's joke, so the
Senator, of course, had to assist at Mr. Malt's, and they began to work
themselves up, as Mr. Malt said, into the spirit of it. Mr. Malt was to
insist that the windows should be shut, he said he _had_ got a trifling
cold, and the Senator was to require them open in the interests of
ventilation. They rehearsed their arguments, and momma putting her head
out of the window at the first small station cried, "Be quick and change
your expressions--he's coming!"
In the presence of the guard Mr. Malt rose with dignity and closed the
windows. The Senator, with a well-simulated scowl, at once opened them
both.
"Stranger!" said Mr. Malt, while momma fumbled for her ticket, "I shut
those windows."
"Sir," responded poppa, "if you had not done so I shouldn't have been
obliged to open them."
"I can't die of pneumonia, sir," said Mr. Malt, again closing the
window, "to oblige _you_."
"Nor do I feel compelled," returned the Senator furiously, "to
asphyxiate my family to make it comfortable for you!" and the window
fell with a bang.
The guard, holding out a massive hand for my ticket, took no notice
whatever.
"Put it up again," said Mrs. Malt, who was more anxious than any of us
to avenge herself upon the German railway system, "and try to break the
glass."
"Attract his attention, Alexander," said momma. "Pull one of his silly
buttons off."
The guard gave no sign--he was replacing the elastic round my book of
coupons after detaching the green one on which was printed, "Strasburg
nach Mainz."
Poppa and Mr. Malt were sitting opposite each other in the middle of
the carriage.
"I tell you I've got bronchial trouble, and I won't be manslaughtered,"
cried Mr. Malt, hurling himself upon the strap, while poppa seized the
guard by the arm and pointed to the closed window. The only foreign
language with which poppa is acquainted is that used by the Indians on
the banks of the Saguenay river, a few words of which he acquired while
salmon fishing there two years ago. These he poured forth upon the
guard--they were the only ones that occurred to him, he said--at the
same time threatening with his disengaged fist bodily assault upon Mr.
Malt.
"That ought to draw him," said Mrs. Malt.
It did draw him.
"Leave go!" he said to poppa, and his air of authority was such that
poppa left go. "Is this here a lunatic party, or a young menagerie, or
what? Now look here," he continued, taking Mr. Malt by the elbow and
seating him with some violence in a corner seat and shutting the window.
"If you've got eight tickets for yourself say so, if you haven't that's
as much an' more than you are entitled to. The other gentleman----" But
the Senator had already collapsed into the furthest corner and was
looking fixedly through the closed glass. "Well, all I've got to say
is," he went on, lowering that window with decision, "that you can't go
kickin' up rows in this country same as you do at home, an' if you can't
get along more satisfactory together I'll----" here something interrupted
him, requiring to be transferred from the Senator's hand to the nearest
convenient pocket. "As I was goin' to say, gentlemen, there isn't any what
you might call strict rule about the windows, an' as far as I'm concerned,
you can settle it for yourselves."
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