Mark Twain in his interesting work “A Tramp Abroad,” thus refers to a
railroad incident:—“We left Turin at 10 the next morning by a railway,
which was profusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern
along, consequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was full.
A ponderous, tow-headed, Swiss woman, who put on many fine-lady airs, but
was evidently more used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in a corner
seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, propping them
intermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat thus pirated sat
two Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman’s majestic coffin-clad
feet. One of them begged her, politely, to remove them. She opened her
wide eyes and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By-and-by he
preferred his request again, with great respectfulness. She said, in
good English, and in a deeply offended tone, that she had paid her
passage and was not going to be bullied out of her ‘rights’ by ill-bred
foreigners, even if she _was_ alone and unprotected.
“‘But I have rights also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, but
you are occupying half of it.’
“‘I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me? I
do not know you. One would know that you come from a land where there
are no gentlemen. No _gentleman_ would treat a lady as you have treated
me.’
“‘I come from a land where a lady would hardly give me the same
provocation.’
“‘You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady—and
I hope I am _not_ one, after the pattern of your country.’
“‘I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam but at
the same time I must insist—always respectfully—that you let me have my
seat.’
“Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.
“‘I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is
brutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has lost
the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without agony!’
“‘Good heavens, madam, why didn’t you say that at first! I offer a
thousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know—I
_could_ not know—that anything was the matter. You are most welcome to
the seat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am
truly sorry it all happened, I do assure you.’
“But he couldn’t get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed
and snuffled in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours,
meantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture,
and paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little efforts
to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the Italian
line, and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a leg as
any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was to see how she had
fooled me!”