Night" to each other, made a great show of
going to sleep. But we never succeeded in getting there. They
wanted to see one's ticket too often for one to get fairly off.
Every few minutes, so it seemed to me, though in reality the
intervals may perhaps have been longer, a ghostly face would appear
at the carriage-window, and ask to see our tickets.
Whenever a German railway-guard feels lonesome, and does not know
what else to do with himself, he takes a walk round the train, and
gets the passengers to show him their tickets, after which he
returns to his box cheered and refreshed. Some people rave about
sunsets and mountains and old masters; but to the German railway-
guard the world can show nothing more satisfying, more inspiring,
than the sight of a railway-ticket.
Nearly all the German railway officials have this same craving for
tickets. If only they get somebody to show them a railway-ticket,
they are happy. It seemed a harmless weakness of theirs, and B. and
I decided that it would be only kind to humour them in it during our
stay.
Accordingly, whenever we saw a German railway official standing
about, looking sad and weary, we went up to him and showed him our
tickets.
