cheaper sections. A Helen, having no cumbersome baggage to impede her movements, was swept in on the crest of the earliest wave, and obtained a corner near the corridor. She meant to leave her handbag there, stroll up and down the station for a few minutes, mainly to look at the cosmopolitan crowd, and perhaps buy some fruit; but the babel of English, German, French, [Pg 65]and Italian, mixed with scraps of Russian and Czech, that raged round a distracted conductor warned her that the wiser policy was to sit still. [Pg 65] An Englishwoman, red faced, elderly, and important, was offered a center seat, facing the engine, in Helen’s compartment. She refused it. Her indignation was magnificent. To face the engine, she declared, meant instant illness. “I never return to this wretched country that I do not regret it!” she shrilled. “Have you no telegraphs? Cannot your officials ascertain from Zurich how many English passengers may be expected, and make suitable provision for them?” As this tirade was thrown away on the conductor, she proceeded to translate it into fairly accurate French; but the man was at his wits’ end to accommodate the throng, and said so, with the breathless politeness that such a grande dame seemed to merit. “Then you should set apart a special train for passengers from England!” she declared vehemently. “I shall never come here again—never! The place is overrun with cheap tourists. Moreover, I shall tell all my friends to avoid Switzerland. Perhaps, when British patronage is withdrawn from your railways and hotels, you will begin to consider our requirements.” Helen felt that her irate fellow countrywoman was metaphorically hurling large volumes of the peerage, baronetage, and landed gentry at the unhappy conductor’s head. Again he pointed out that there [Pg 66]was a seat at madam’s service. When the train started he would do his best to secure another in the desired position. [Pg 66] As the woman, whose proportions were generous, was blocking the gangway, she received a forcible reminder from the end of a heavy portmanteau that she must clear out of the way. Breathing dire reprisals on the Swiss federal railway system, she entered unwillingly. “Disgraceful!” she snorted. “A nation of boors! In another second I should have been thrown
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