At the first station we stopped at, the bearer appeared at the carriage window with a breakfast cup of tea and a large “y-sponge-cake,” ferreted from no man knows where.  He was so pleased with himself that I hadn’t the heart to refuse it—­so there were three meals that ought to have been spread over the greater part of the day crowded into one morning.  I sympathized with the vulture, who

  “Eats between his meals,
    And that’s the reason why
  He very, very rarely feels
    As well as you and I.”

It is never pleasant to come down from the heights, and we had rather a dreary journey to Siliguri.

Boggley had taken care to wire for a lower berth in the train for me, but it seems ordained that I shall ascend in Indian trains.  I again found myself in a carriage with my Americans, and the daughter had such bad toothache, and seemed so much to dread the prospect of mounting to the eyrie, that I had to say that I would rather like it for myself.

Toothache kept Miss America awake and made her talkative, which was unfortunate for me.  She wanted to know all about the manners and customs of the British.  She only knew us from the outside, so to speak.  Incidentally she shed a lurid light on the habits of the American male.  It seems that young men in America are expected to carry offerings of fruit and flowers and candy to young women—­not when they are engaged, mark you; what is expected of them then I daren’t think—­but to quite irrelevant young women.  “Don’t young gentlemen do so in England?” asked Miss America.  “No,” I said, feeling that I was making out my countrymen poor, mean creatures indeed, but feeling also how much more complicated life would become for these “gentlemen of England now abed” if they had to carry crates of oranges, drums of figs, and pounds of candies to every casual young woman whose acquaintance they enjoyed.

“You don’t say!” said Miss America.  “And don’t they take you out driving in their buggies?”

“Never,” I replied firmly.  “They haven’t got them.”

“You don’t say!  And how does a young gentleman show he admires you?”

“Well, he doesn’t as a rule,” I murmured feebly.

“I guess,” she said, “we manage things better in America.”  And, indeed, perhaps they do.

This conversation so exhausted us that we fell very sound asleep, and knew nothing till we arrived at the station where we had to get out and change into the ferry-boat.  Then there was a terrible scurry.  The servants waiting to pack up the bedding and strap bags—­they said they had wakened us at the previous station, but they must have wakened someone else instead—­while we threw on various articles of clothing, stuck hats on undone hair, and feet into unlaced shoes, all the while, like a Greek chorus, the “Mommer” moaning reproachfully, “Oh, Ali, you might have woke us,” while outside on the platform bounded the irate Boggley speaking winged words.