Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1892 — THE BALE EXPRESS. [ARTICLE]

THE BALE EXPRESS.

Detroit Free Frea*. The night express for Bale stood ready to depart in the huge, glassroofed, dimly lighted terminus. The big clock with an illuminated disc showed that the hour for leaving was past, but the officials were still packing people into the already overcrowded. train. The only problem that troubles the mind of an European railway official is how to get a quart into a pint measure. The traveler in Europe is still treated as a criminal deserving no mitigation of punishment, and a long railway journey is made as crowded and uncomfortable as possible. The night express to Bale during the height of the Swiss travel is usually sent off in two sections. The first was gone and the second was about to leave. The last passenger jammed in, the door was slammed shut, the usual nonsensical tooting of horns, blowing of shrill whistles and ringing of bells were accomplished, and finally the Bale express pulled out, passing the first tall buildings on each side of the deep trench containing the rails, then the more scattered villas of the suburbs, and at last with increasing speed it rattled into the dark open country. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and a few deluded mortals on the train, thinking they might get some sleep, pulled down the semicircles of cloth that covered the lamps in the roof of every carriage, thus darkening the compartment. Just as each one had settled himself in the small amount of space allowed him the doors of the first compartment swung' suddenly open and the guard, with a dim lantern at his belt, stepped in, bringing with him a gust of wind and the roar of the train, which suddenly deadened again as he closed the- door. This mystical entrance of the guard with the train flying through the darkness always startles a passenger unaccustomed to the methods of continental railways. “Tickets,gentlemen,if you please.” Each man tumbled for his ticket. The guard handed back some of the tickets without looking at them; others he put in his pocket. “Here,” said a passenger, protestingly, “give me back my ticket. It is for Bale.” “You will not be asked for it again,” answered the guard gruffly. “But it is exactly the same as the ticket my friend here has. You gave his back.” “I tell you you will not need your tickets. Permit me to understand my own business.” The passenger, being a Frenchman and therefore, accustomed to tyran-, ny, whether that of a republic or a monarchy, subsided into silence and the impolite guard swung whirling night. The next batch of passengers was not so complaisant. An Englishman refused to give up his bunch of coupons which was to take him through Switzerland guard paid no attention to him until he had examined all the other tickets retaining some and returning others, to the bewilderment of the victims. “Allow me to examine your tickets,” he said at last to the Englishman.

. “Yes; but you must not keep them as you did the others. , I will tear out the Bale coupon.” “If you do it will not be valid. I must tear it out myself.” Reluctantly the tickets were given up. The guard instantly stuffed them all in his pouqh“This is an outrage,” cried the passenger, indignantly. “I want your number and a written receipt for the tickets." You will receive your tickets at Bale if you apply for them,” answered the guard as he left the compartment. The Englishman fumed and threatened and cursed the high-handed methods of railways owned by the government, nothing could be done until morning. He called some of his fallow passengers to witness the manner in which he had been treated and settled himself back to sleep, if sleep frere possible. Meanwhile, in the first compartment the door again swung open and another guard put in an appearance. He was costumed exactly like the first, but instead of working in the darkness he put up his hand, snapped apart the artificial eyelid that covered the lamp and flooded the

compartment with light. “ Tickets, gentlemen, if you please. ” A howl went up from the passengers. How often during that wretched night were they to be asked for tickets ? Was this sort of persecution to occur every half hour? The guard looked from one to another in astonishment. How often ? This was the first time. Tickets would not be again required until they reached the German frontier. Then they would have to get out anyhow, because of customs inspection. “Tickets, if you please. ” “ I have already given up my ticket. " “To whom?" “To a guard who came in here a moment ago. I protested, bqt it was of no use. "

“Impossible. There has been no guard here before me. " An immediate outcry bewildered the guard. Everyone talked as loud and as fast as be could, accompanying his emphatic declarations with energetic gestures, as is the amusing custom with foreigners. The guard looked suspiciously at them aIL This was evidently a plot—a new dodge. He must have tickets or money, he said. Those who had given up their tickets told him to find the other guard if he wanted the tickets. It was not likely, they added,

that they were going along a shaky' footboard oh a night express to search for him. The guard w*nt to the next compartment, advising those he was leaving to have their tickets ready by the time he returned. In the next compartment, and the next, he found the same state of things, and at last it occurred to him that a whole train load of passengers, native and foreign, could hardly have entered into a ticket suppressing conspiracy. The Englishman had been particularly insulting, and experience told the guard that it is the man who is lying and trying to cheat that is always polite. The man in the wrong cannot afford to use bad language. The guard then thought that his co laborer at the other end of the train had suddenly gone crazy and collected the tickets a’ong the whole line of carriages, instead of Confining himself, as usual, to the rear half. Getting out once more on the foot board he worked his way along toward the rear of the train. He had gone about half way when he met the other guard. “Have you been collecting tickets in mv hlaf of the train?” “That is just the question I was going to ask you. Some one in uniform has been through the rear half and everything is in confusion. I have seen nothing of him.” “Nop have T. Perhaps he is in the sleeping car. ” “No, he has not been there at all, but in every other carriage.” “He cannot have ezcaped. He may be on the engine.”

“Well, you go forward and see. I’ll go to the rear and keep a lookout.” The guard did not think much of the crew on the engine. The driver was an Italian, a swarthy, brigandish looking man, who never satisfactorily accounted for his desertion of bis native country, where he claimed to have driven the Rome-Naples express. Why should a man in such a position leave it to take a place on a slow local train, as Partenza had done before be was promoted to the Bale express? —• Still no one claimed he was not a good engineer. The fireman was a compatriot of the guard, but he stammered fearfully. This natural defect was looked upon with suspicion by the guards and the minor officers of the line. There must be something evil about a man who had an impediment of speech. The stammering stoker was on the tender shoveling down coal when the guard-reached the engine. He was asked if any one was on the engine except the two who should be there, but before the man could stammer out either a negative or affirmative the guard lost patience, and working his way over the quivering machine he reached the eab, where Partenza, with hje hand on the lever, was peering ahead into the darkness' “Has thebe been anyone on the engine since you started?” “No.” said the Italian in a surely . atone; “who should be with us?” “There is someone on the train concealed. I thought he might be here. He is dressed like a guard and has taken up a quarter of the tickets—perhaps more. ” r The engineer’s hand dropped from the lever and he started at the guard

with eyes so wide and with such a gleam of insanity in them that the other stepped involuntarily back from him. The Italian drew the back of his grimy hand across his black perspiring brow. “My God!” he cried huskily, “The Death. Guard!” “What do you mean?” “He was on my train before —on the Naples express that was wrecked. He has followed me here. I will not take this train to Bale.” Before the guard could reply the stoker came tumbling down over the coal, wild to speak, but unable to make a sound. “He has seen him,” cried the guard. “He has seen something, what is it, you fool?" The fireman, realizing his helplessness, sprang forward and attempted to pull the lever. ” “None of that, you stuttering idiot. Don’t interfere with what you don’t understand,” and the Ital ian struck him a staggering blow that knocked him against the side of the cab and at the same time seemed to break the bonds that imprisoned his speech. “The red light!” he shrieked. You have passed it!" The engineer with an oath threw himself on the lover and flung on the air brake, that instantly checked the flying train like a blow. Right ahead the guard saw the rear lights of the forward half of the Bale express. The next instant he was tumbling handover lieels down the embankment. The Italian stuck to his engine as it went grinding through the splintering fragments of the standing train, reeling over at last and burying him under a mass of hissing iron. No man whose ticket was taken up applied for its return at Bale.