"Nothing until the fifth."
"What's this?"
There were never more than two servings of lunch on that train, and always plenty of places for both of them.
"They're all reserved," the dining-car conductor said. "There will be a fifth service at three-thirty."
"This is serious," I said to Bill.
"Give him ten francs."
"Here," I said. "We want to eat in the first service."
The conductor put the ten francs in his pocket.
"Thank you," he said. "I would advise you gentlemen to get some sandwiches. All the places for the first four services were reserved at the office of the company."
"You'll go a long way, brother," Bill said to him in English. "I suppose if I'd given you five francs you would have advised us to jump off the train."
"Comment?"
"Go to hell!" said Bill. "Get the sandwiches made and a bottle of wine. You tell him, Jake."
"And send it up to the next car." I described where we were.
In our compartment were a man and his wife and their young son.
"I suppose you're Americans, aren't you?" the man asked. "Having a good trip?"
"Wonderful," said Bill.
"That's what you want to do. Travel while you're young. Mother and I always wanted to get over, but we had to wait a while."
"You could have come over ten years ago, if you'd wanted to," the wife said. "What you always said was: 'See America first!' I will say we've seen a good deal, take it one way and another."
"Say, there's plenty of Americans on this train," the husband
