Twenty minutes before a train arrives at
its destination, the despot who has taken no notice of any one up
to this moment, except to snub them, becomes suspiciously attentive
and insists on brushing everybody. The dirt one traveller has been
accumulating is sent in clouds into the faces of his neighbors.
When he is polished off and has paid his "quarter" of tribute, the
next man gets up, and the dirt is then brushed back on to number
one, with number two's collection added.
Labiche begins one of his plays with two servants at work in a
salon. "Dusting," says one of them, "is the art of sending the
dirt from the chair on the right over to the sofa on the left." I
always think of that remark when I see the process performed in a
parlor car, for when it is over we are all exactly where we began.
If a man should shampoo his hair, or have his boots cleaned in a
salon, he would be ejected as a boor; yet the idea apparently never
enters the heads of those who soil and choke their fellow-
passengers that the brushing might be done in the vestibule.
On the subject of fresh air and heat we are also in the hands of
officials, dozens of passengers being made to suffer for the
caprices of one of their number, or the taste of some captious
invalid. In other lands the rights of minorities are often
ignored. With us it is the contrary. One sniffling school-girl
who prefers a temperature of 80 degrees can force a car full of
people to swelter in an atmosphere that is death to them, because
she refuses either to put on her wraps or to have a window opened.
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