The Argosy — page 62: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Night in a Monastery. AQ flaring away with gas. The waiting-rooms crowded with troops, lying and thrown aboutein all directions : Zouaves and Turcos who did not’ resemble human beings: who very likely fought like wild beasts, which they did resemble: many of them lying about drunk or asleep, in every attitude of abandonment. A picture so vivid that it is hardly possible to recall it without a shiver. I stood so long on the platform, drawing comparisons between that past time and the present, that I scarcely left myself a moment for a bowl of coffee. Scarcely was it poured out, hot and steaming, when the bell rang and the passengers frantically rushed away. After swallowing the coffee and paying for it, the train doors were closed, and the engine was preparing to start. ‘To my infinite vexation, I could not find my own compartment, of which I had omitted to take the number, and where in a comfortable corner I had left rugs and books. I went up and down, looking in here and peering in there, feeling very hurried and unsettled. But it was hopeless. ‘The carriage was not to be found. The guards were raging and storming. At last, despairing, I opened a door, and was thrust back with an intimation in broad English tones—“ No room.” It must have been a mistake, to speak politely, on the part of those travellers, for there were but four of them. But there was no time to argue the point. On, to the next compart- ment. The curtains had been carefully closed, the red shield drawn over the lamp. I was met with a howl of consternation—a quartette of horror—and the words “‘ Pour dames seules !” Four ladies, of uncertain age, reclined in the four corners. One of them, having disencumbered herself of a front of flaxen curls, and a set of teeth, which were gingerly placed beside her, had enveloped her head in a nightcap with broad frills. No sooner did she catch sight of one of the opposite sex (perfidious monsters!), invading the sanctum, than she gave vent to one of the most piercing shrieks ever uttered, and bobbed her head under a shawl. Although the train was in motion, they would not let me in. The guard, with an amused laugh, broad enough to have driven a vain woman insane, pulled me back, opened the door of the next compartment, and launched me in like an arrow. Room there, and to spare, but of comfort little. The night was chilly; my rug was probably appropriated by somebody else, and turned intoa blanket ; sol had to sitshivering. We made progress, and at half-past seven reached Lyons. I secured my property, and left the Marseilles express for the line branching off to Grenoble. The change, in the matter of speed, was not for the better. There were numerous stations on the line, and we halted at each: at some of them loitering away as much as ten minutes, where perhaps one pas- senger would get in and one alight. So much unnecessary time is allowed these trains that, in spite of all the slow speed and loitering, they still travel too quickly for the time-tables, VOL. XVII. Ez comicbooks =) aA)