After that she came floundering once again over the partition, and guarding my loins, I leapt into the next compartment, seeing the affair had become a _sauve qui peut_, and devil take the hindmost: and at the nick of time, when she was about to descend like a wolf on a fold, I most fortunately perceived a bell-handle provided for such pressing emergencies and rung it with such unparalleled energy, that the train immediately became stationary. Then, as my female persecutress alighted on the floor of the compartment in the limp condition of a collapse, I stepped across to my original seat, and endeavoured to look as if with withers unwrung. Presently the Guard appeared, and what followed I can best render in the dramatical form of a dialogue:-- _The Guard_ (_addressing the ~Elderly Female~, who is sitting smiling with vacuity beneath the bell-pull_). So it is you who have sounded the alarm! What is it all about? _The Elderly Female_ (_with warm indignation_). Me? I never did! I am too much of the lady. It was that young coloured gentleman in the next compartment. [_At which the tip of my nose goes down with apprehensiveness._ _The Guard._ Indeed! A likely story! How could the gentleman ring this bell from where he is? _Myself_ (_with mental presence_). Well said, Mister GUARD! The thing is not humanly possible. _Rem acu tetigisti!_ _The Guard._ I do not understand Indian, Sir. If you have anything to say about this affair, you had better say it. _Myself_ (_combining discretion with magnanimousness_). As a chivalrous, I must decline to bring any accusation against a member of the weaker sex, and my tongue is hermetically sealed. _The Eld. F._ It was _him_ who rang the alarm, and not me. He was in this compartment, and I in that. _The Guard._ What? have you been playing at Hide-and-seek together, then? But if your story is watertight, he must have rung the bell in a state of abject bodily terror, owing to your chivying him about! _The Eld. F._ It is false! I have been well educated, and belong to an excellent family. I merely wanted to kiss him. _The Guard._ I see what is your complaint. You have been imbibing the drop too much and will hear of this from the Company. I must trouble you, Mam, for your correct name and address. _Myself_ (_after he had obtained this and was departing_). Mister Guard, I do most earnestly entreat you not to abandon me to the tender mercies of this feminine. I am not a proficient in physical courage, and have no desire to test the correctness of Poet POPE'S assertion, that Hell does not possess the fury of a scorned woman. I request to be conducted into a better-populated compartment. _The Guard_ (_with complimentary jocosity_). Ah, such young good-looking chaps as you ought to go about in a veil. Come with me, and I'll put you into a smoker-carriage. You won't be run after there!