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Compartment Number Four–Cologne To Paris
by
Outside these ponderous rooms, under the arching glass of the station itself, is a broad platform protected from rushing trains and yard engines by a wrought-iron fence, twisted into most enchanting scrolls and pierced down its whole length by sliding wickets, before which stand be-capped and be-buttoned officials of the road. It is part of the duty of these gatemen never to let you through these wickets until the arrival of the last possible moment compatible with the boarding of your car.
So if you are wise–that is, if you have been left behind several times depending on the watchfulness of these Cerberi and their promises to let you know when your train is ready–you hang about this gate and keep an eye out as to what is going on. I had been two nights on the sleeper through from Warsaw and beyond, and could take no chances.
Then again, I wanted to watch the people coming and going–it is a habit of mine; nothing gives me greater pleasure. It has made me an expert in judging human nature. I flatter myself that I can tell the moment I set my eyes on a man just what manner of life he leads, what language he speaks, whether he be rich or poor, educated or ignorant. I can do all this before he opens his mouth. I have never been proud of this faculty. I have regarded it more as a gift, as I would an acute sense of color, or a correct eye for drawing, or the ability to acquire a language quickly. I was born that way, I suppose.
The first man to approach the wicket was the Director of the Circus. I knew him at once. There was no question as to his identity. He wore a fifty-candle-power stone in his shirt-front, a silk hat that shone like a new hansom cab, and a Prince Albert coat that came below his knees. He had taken off his ring boots, of course, and was without his whip, but otherwise he was completely equipped to raise his hat and say: “Ladies and Gentlemen, the world-renowned,” etc., etc., “will now perform the blood-curdling act of,” etc.
He was attended by a servant, was smooth-shaven, had an Oriental complexion as yellow as the back of an old law-book, black, jet-black eyes, and jet-black hair.
I listened for some outbreak, some explosion about his bed having been sold from under him, some protest about the rights of a citizen. None came. The gateman merely touched his hat, slid back the gate, and the Director of the Greatest Show on Earth, smiling haughtily, passed in, crossed the platform and stepped into a wagon-lit standing on the next track to me labelled “Paris 312,” and left me behind. The gateman had had free tickets, of course, or would have, for himself and family whenever the troupe should be in Cologne. There was no doubt of it–I saw it in the smile that permeated his face and the bow that bent his back as the man passed him. This kind of petty bribery is, of course, abominable, and should never be countenanced.
Some members of the troupe came next. The gentleman in chocolate with my five francs in his pocket did not mention the name of any other member of the troupe except the Director, but it was impossible for me to be mistaken about these people–I have seen too many of them.
She was rather an imposing-looking woman–not young, not old–dressed in a long travelling-cloak trimmed with fur (how well we know these night-cloaks of the professional!), and was holding by a short leash an enormous Danish hound; one of those great hulking hounds–a hound whose shoulders shake when he walks, with white, blinky eyes, smooth skin, and mottled spots–brown and gray–spattered along his back and ribs. Trick dog, evidently–one who springs at the throat of the assassin (the assassin has a thin slice of sausage tucked inside his collar-button), pulls him to the earth, and sucks his life’s blood or chews his throat. She, too, went through with a sweep–the dog beside her, followed by a maid carrying two band-boxes, a fur boa, and a bunch of parasols closely furled and tied with a ribbon. I braced up, threw out my shoulders, and walked boldly up to the wicket. The be-buttoned and be-capped man looked at me coldly, waved me away with his hand, and said “Nein.”