the International Sleeping-Car Company’s dining-car you get the same old meal and the same old taste. When I last travelled on the Orient Express, I was thinking the whole time, which is the most comfortable or the most uncomfortable, that or an American train. And I made the following schedule of advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of the Orient Express over an American express train:-- (1) You have a compartment to yourself or, at the worst, shared with one other. (2) You can smoke where you like. (3) You have a washing-place opening off of your compartment. Advantages of the American express over the Orient Express:-- (1) Your bed, when you are once in it, is much broader and more comfortable. (2) The food is incomparably better. (3) There is a constant supply of iced water within reach. Disadvantages of the Orient Express:-- (1) The bed is narrow. A hard pillow is put under the mattress so that it catches you in the small of the back. If you take it away, your head sinks into a draughty hole between the wall and the mattress. The blanket is folded double, so that it is impossible to cover yourself or the bed with it entirely. If you unfold it and use it single it is too thin to protect you from the cold. (2) You can smoke in your compartment, it is true, but if you want for a change to smoke in the smoking compartment, you will find the accommodations insufficient and unsatisfactory. (3) There is no supply of newspapers. Disadvantages of an American express:-- (1) You have to wash in public. Passengers often use the washing-room as smoking-room in the morning and sit in it smoking cigars, while you have to shave. Some people find it quite impossible to shave in public. Shaving even in private makes them nervous, but shaving in public is for them a positive impossibility. (2) Undressing in the berth of an American car is an acrobatic feat. (3) You are at the mercy of the coloured man who looks after you. Either he bullies you or he doesn’t; but if he doesn’t he is generally slack and doesn’t look after you and your things. He makes up for inefficiency by an exaggerated familiarity. [Illustration: UNDRESSING IN THE BERTH OF AN AMERICAN CAR IS AN ACROBATIC FEAT]