“I trust Herr will remember me in the days to come.”

“Eh?” somewhat startled, I thought.

“I observed that you will possibly remember me in the days to come.  Or, perhaps I resemble some one you know.”

“Not in the least,” was the haughty retort.

I shrugged and relit my pipe.  The tobacco I had purchased in Paris, and it was of the customary vileness.  Perhaps I could smoke out Mein Herr.  But the task resulted in a boomerang.  He drew out a huge china pipe and began smoking tobacco which was even viler than mine, if that could be possible.  Soon I let down the window.

“Does the smoke disturb Herr?” he asked, puffing forth great clouds of smoke.  There was a shade of raillery in his tones.

“It would not,” I answered, “if it came from tobacco.”

He subsided.

Whenever there was a stop of any length I stepped out and walked the platform.  The officer invariably followed my example.  I pondered over this each time I re-entered the carriage.  At last my irritation turned into wrath.

“Are you aware that your actions are very annoying?”

“How, sir?” proudly.

“You stare me out of countenance, you refrain from entering into conversation, and by the way you follow me in and out of the carriage, one would say that you were watching me.  All this is not common politeness.”

“Herr jests,” he replied with a forced smile.  “If I desire not to converse, that is my business.  As for getting in and out of the carriage, have I no rights as a passenger?”

It was I who subsided.  A minute passed.

“But why do you stare at me?” I asked.

“I do not stare at you, I have no paper and tried to read yours at a distance.  I am willing to apologize for that.”

“Oh, that is different,” I said.  I tossed the paper to him.  “You are welcome to the paper.”

I covertly watched him as he tried to read the French.  By and by he passed the paper back.

“I am not a very good French scholar, and the French are tiresome.”

“They would not have been if they had had a General who thought more of fighting than of wearing pretty clothes.”

“Oh, it would not have mattered,” confidently.

“Prussia was once humbled by a Frenchman.”  I was irritating him with a purpose in view.

“Bah!”

“The only reason the French were beaten was because they did not think the German race worth troubling about.”

He laughed pleasantly.  “You Americans have a strange idea of the difference between the German and the Frenchman.”

This was just what I wanted.

“And who informed you that I was an American?”

He was disconcerted.

“Why,” he said, lamely, “it is easily apparent, the difference between the American and the Englishman.”  Then, as though a bright idea had come to him, “The English never engage in conversation with strangers while traveling.  Americans are more sociable.”