Look at the question, Sir, as pointing at my supposed Christian name (I have one, but it is not ELIZABETH, nor yet ELIZA); can you imagine anything more odiously familiar?  “Well known for his mild and gentle disposition” this “gentleman” of Brooklyn may be; but there was no mildness, no gentleness this time, I assure you!  The language alone proves that!

The rudeness was all the more shocking and discomposing, from the fact that I was at that moment contemplating the elegant features of a gentleman at the other end of the car, who seemed not altogether indifferent to my appearance (which he would have been, perhaps, had I seemed of “uncertain age,” as the low fellow observes who wrote this paragraph), and there was every appearance of a growing interest in two susceptible hearts, when this cold-blooded (but “mild and gentle”) person launched his brutal interrogatory, so selfish and unfeeling, with such violent abruptness.

Look, if you will, Sir, at the question as referring purely to the city which we were approaching.  How did I know that my new found, but already dear friend was not about to alight (as, indeed, he seemed to be), and leave me to the disgusting society of this “mild and gentle” barbarian sitting beside me in such a state of stolid indifference, and thinking only of a vulgar town, and his still more vulgar affairs in that town!

Consider again, Sir, the audacity of this person (called a man), in repeating his odious question after the rebuke I had administered!  Yes, he actually repeated it! as though I were a long-lost acquaintance, of whose identity he felt more than doubtful; I simply said to him (though the slanderous report says I screamed it), “You may think you are a gentleman, Sir” (and here I claim is evinced a disposition to be fair even to an enemy)—­“you may think you are a gentleman, Sir, to address a lady so; but I do not wish to continue any further talk with you.”

You may fancy the state of my feelings, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, at being obliged to make this little speech, and my friend at the other end of the car looking on, with wonder in every one of his expressive features, and the conductor at that instant coming in and shouting, “ELIZABETH!” as though I were called for and must go that very instant.  Indeed, I felt very much like doing so—­but not, I assure you, on perceiving that the “mild and gentle” ogre I have been speaking of was already going out.  No; I was thankful I was going further, though the behavior of the remaining passengers was not calculated to inspire me with a very quieting sense of ease.

You will, I am sure, excuse the feelings of a lady who has been insulted by a ruffianly person (called a man), and affronted by a car-full of insolent and vulgar mob, called the American Public.  I hope the gentleman at the other end of the car will take for granted that he was not one of this brutal mob.