Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-09-13
Continued from page 5

self one afternoon on my way from Los
Angeles to Phoenix. After having satisfied
the inner man with an excellent Fred
Harvey luncheon,-an edible oasis always
in desert of indigestibility, had retired
to the smoking car for that spiritual re-
freshment which comes from watching the
smoke wreaths curl upward from the end
of good cigar.
Unhappily for the quality of that re-
freshment, l was no sooner seated in the
smoking room than | perceived that | was
surrounded by men who, judging by surface
indications, were hopeless vulgarlans. Among
them were three especially whose converse
ton was even lower than their brows. /
think l can best describe their conversation
by saying that in all probability Boccac-
clos lady companions out Fiesole way at
the time of the plague that drove the Flor
entine Four Hundred beyond the city linn
its would have fled blushingly before it,
taking refuge by preference in the pure, I'M
defiled Rolloisms of the Decameron itself;
while poor old Rabelais, not always mas
ter of reticence in things better left unsaid,
would, am sure, have joined a literary
branch of the 1. W. W. in sheer rebellion,
rather than sully the refinement of his pen
by taking down any part of it.
One has to listen to great deal of this
sort of thing en- route, and pending the dis
covery of some kind of vocal silencer that
shall render such communications as noise
less as they are corrupting to good manners,
or a portable muffler which the unwilling
listener may place over his ears, the wander
ing platform performer who has not yet
reached point where he can give up his
cigar and be happy must needs endure them.
Indeed he is doing well if he is not lured
into a shamefaced enjoyment of such talk;
for it must be admitted that some of the
travelling companions one meets thus by
chance have rare powers as storytellers,
and pour forth at times most Objectionable
periods with smiling enthusiasm almost
fetching enough to tempt a Simeon Sty-
lites down from the top of his pillar in
to the lower regions of their alluring good
fellowship.
Neither prig nor prude am 1; but on
this particular occasion the gross results of
the conversation were SO very gross as to
preclude the possibility of there being any
met proceeds" of value, and l fled.
ON returning to my place in the sleeper
- noticed in the section directly across the
aisle handsome Englishwoman, travelling
with no other companion than a little
daughter, child of about three and a hall
years of happy, bubbling youth. The little
one was seated on her mothers lap, and was
enjoying a Slet's pretend drive across
country, using the maternal lorgnette chain
in lieu of the ribbons wherewith to guide her
imaginary steeds.
An hour passed, when boisterous laugh
from the rear of the car indicated the ap-
proach of the three barbarians of the smoker
who to my disgust moment later settled
themselves in the section directly in front
of mine, and to my disnay began appar-
emily to take greater interest in the lady
across the aisle than the ordinary usages
of polite human intercourse warranted, lack
ing a formal introduction
have never posed as Squire of Danes
and l have a wholesome distaste for such
troubles as an unseeing eye enables a man
to avoid; but the intrusion of these Goths,
not to say Vandals, upon the lady's right to
travel unmolested was so obvious that
couldn't help seeing and inwardly resenting
it. The woman herself treated the situation
with becoming GOODNESS and dignity, show
ing only by slight change of color, and now
and then a vexed biting of the lips, that she
noticed it at all; but the cooler she became
the more strenuous became the efforts of
the barbarians to "scrape an acquaintance.
held an inward debate with myself as to
my duty in the premises. l did not care
to get into row; but the ogling soon became
so pronounced that it really seemed neces-
corr, To i,tarfore 7 roaf.ba5 ont INV ba nd