unfortunately tends to be continued after the particular

transaction is at an end, and thus favours class separations. But

on the other hand, these equalitarian plainnesses leave an open

field for the insolence of Jack-in-office.

I was nettled by the coloured gentleman's refusal, and unbuttoned

my wrath under the similitude of ironical submission. I knew

nothing, I said, of the ways of American hotels; but I had no

desire to give trouble. If there was nothing for it but to get to

bed immediately, let him say the word, and though it was not my

habit, I should cheerfully obey.

He burst into a shout of laughter. "Ah!" said he, "you do not know

about America. They are fine people in America. Oh! you will like

them very well. But you mustn't get mad. I know what you want.

You come along with me."

And issuing from behind the counter, and taking me by the arm like

an old acquaintance, he led me to the bar of the hotel.

"There," said he, pushing me from him by the shoulder, "go and have

a drink!"

THE EMIGRANT TRAIN

All this while I had been travelling by mixed trains, where I might

meet with Dutch widows and little German gentry fresh from table.

I had been but a latent emigrant; now I was to be branded once

more, and put apart with my fellows. It was about two in the

afternoon of Friday that I found myself in front of the Emigrant

House, with more than a hundred others, to be sorted and boxed for

the journey. A white-haired official, with a stick under one arm,

and a list in the other hand, stood apart in front of us, and

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