All would have gone well with him if he had not been so darned honest. He is one of those men who pride themselves on being honest. I believe he takes a positive pleasure in being honest. He had purchased a second-class ticket for a station up a mountain, but meeting, by chance on the platform, a lady acquaintance, had gone with her into a first-class apartment. On arriving at the journey’s end he explained to the collector what he had done, and, with his purse in his hand, demanded to know the difference. They took him into a room and locked the door. They wrote out his confession and read it over to him, and made him sign it, and then they sent for a policeman. The policeman cross-examined him for about a quarter of an hour. They did not believe the story about the lady. Where was the lady? He did not know. They searched the neighbourhood for her, but could not find her. He suggested—what turned out to be the truth—that, tired of loitering about the station, she had gone up the mountain. An Anarchist outrage had occurred in the neighbouring town some months before. The policeman suggested searching for bombs. Fortunately, a Cook’s agent, returning with a party of tourists, arrived upon the scene, and took it upon himself to explain in delicate language that my friend was a bit of an ass and could not tell first class from second. It was the red cushions that had deceived my friend: he thought it was first class, as a matter of fact it was second class. Everybody breathed again. The confession was torn up amid universal joy: and then the fool of a ticket collector wanted to know about the lady—who must have travelled in a second-class compartment with a first-class ticket. It looked as if a bad time were in store for her on her return to the station. But the admirable representative of Cook was again equal to the occasion. He explained that my friend was also a bit of a liar. When he said he had travelled with this lady he was merely boasting. He would like to have travelled with her, that was all he meant, only his German was shaky. Joy once more entered upon the scene. My friend’s character appeared to be re-established. He was not the abandoned wretch for whom they had taken him—only, apparently, a wandering idiot. Such an one the German official could respect. At the expense of such an one the German official even consented to drink beer.