The man was not pleasant to be near in any way, and he was
evidently not at all satisfied with the amount of room I allowed him. He
kept discontentedly and doggedly pushing his spare pair of boots farther
and farther into my two-thirds of the seat, and once or twice was on the
point of a protest, in which case I was prepared to tell him that as he
filled the whole banquette with his smell, he ought in reason to be
satisfied with less room for himself; but instead of speaking, he
brought out a tobacconist's parcel and began to open it. Tobacco-smoke
is all very well under suitable circumstances, but it is possible to be
too hot and dusty and bilious to be able to stand it, and I watched his
proceedings with more of annoyance than of resignation. The parcel
turned out, however, to be delightful snuff, tastefully perfumed and
very refreshing; and the politeness with which the owner gave a pinch to
the foreign monsieur, after apportioning a handful to the driver and
conductor, won him a good three inches more of seat. The inevitable
cigar soon came; but it was a very good one, and no one could complain:
all the same, I could not help feeling a malicious satisfaction when the
_douaniers_ on the French frontier investigated the spare
boots--guiltless, one might have thought, of anything except the
extremity of age and dirt--and drew from them a bundle or two of
smuggled cigars, the owner trying in vain to look as if he rather liked
it.
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