Several times I was strongly impelled to shunt my bass snorer off the bed or twig his Roman nose, but one experiment of a kick roused such a vigorous snort, like that produced by dropping a brick on a sleeping pig, that I abandoned such physical means of retaliation. I thought of tickling his nose with a feather or a straw, but the bed contained neither, and I had not even a pin. And supposing I should stop my shelf-mate, what could I do to suppress the rest? Should I make some horrible noise between a hoarse cough and a crow, and say, if any one complained, that it was my way of snoring? But I thought that the object to be attained, and the possibility of being voted insane and consigned, in spite of protestation, to the baggage-car, would not compensate me for the exertion required; so I determined to submit to it like a Stoic. (_Query:_ Would a Stoic have submitted?) The more one meditates upon the reason of wakefulness, the more his chances of sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself, I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is fifteen--remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration--the number of hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred an hour. Multiply 900 by 6--the number of hours I lay awake--and you have 5400, the number of notes struck by each snorer. There were at least twelve distinct and regular snorers in the car. Multiply 5400 by 12, and you have 64,800 snores, not including the snuffling neighs, perpetrated in that car from about eleven P. M. until five the next morning! The question follows: "Can snoring be prevented?" It is plainly a nuisance, and ought to be indictable. I have heard of the use of local stimulants, such as camphire and ammonia--how I longed for the sweet revenge of holding a bottle of aqua ammonia under that Roman nose!--and also of clipping the uvula, which may cause snoring by resting on the base of the tongue. The question demands the grave consideration of our railroad managers; for while the traveling public do not object to a man snoring the roof off if he chooses to do it under his own vine and fig tree, tired men and women have a right to expect a sleep when they contract for it. Is there no lover of sleep and litigation who will prosecute for damages?