There could be no better breakfast than used to be given in the buffet at the railway terminus at St. Michael.  The company might occasionally be led into errors about that question of coupe seats, but in reference to their provisions, they set an example which might be of great use to us here in England.  It is probably the case that breakfasts for travellers are not so frequently needed here as they are on the Continent; but, still, there is often to be found a crowd of people ready to eat if only the wherewithal were there.  We are often told in our newspapers that England is disgraced by this and by that; by the unreadiness of our army, by the unfitness of our navy, by the irrationality of our laws, by the immobility of our prejudices, and what not; but the real disgrace of England is the railway sandwich—­that whited sepulchre, fair enough outside, but so meagre, poor, and spiritless within, such a thing of shreds and parings, such a dab of food, telling us that the poor bone whence it was scraped had been made utterly bare before it was sent into the kitchen for the soup pot.  In France one does get food at the railway stations, and at St. Michael the breakfast was unexceptional.

Our two friends seated themselves near to the American ladies, and were, of course, thanked for their politeness.  American women are taught by the habits of their country to think that men should give way to them more absolutely than is in accordance with the practices of life in Europe.  A seat in a public conveyance in the States, when merely occupied by a man, used to be regarded by any woman as being at her service as completely as though it were vacant.  One woman indicating a place to another would point with equal freedom to a man or a space.  It is said that this is a little altered now, and that European views on this subject are spreading themselves.  Our two ladies, however, who were pretty, clever-looking, and attractive even after the night’s journey, were manifestly more impressed with the villainy of the French officials than they were with the kindness of their English neighbours.

‘And nothing can be done to punish them?’ said the younger of them to Mr Glascock.

‘Nothing, I should think,’ said he.  ‘Nothing will, at any rate.’

‘And you will not get back your money?’ said the elder who, though the elder, was probably not much above twenty.

’Well no.  Time is money, they say.  It would take thrice the value of the time in money, and then one would probably fail.  They have done very well for us, and I suppose there are difficulties.’

‘It couldn’t have taken place in our country,’ said the younger lady.  ’All the same, we are very much obliged to you.  It would not have been nice for us to have to go up into the banquette.’

‘They would have put you into the interior.’

’And that would have been worse.  I hate being put anywhere as if I were a sheep.  It seems so odd to us, that you here should be all so tame.’