3\2 To the River Plate and Back 



to take us to Rio de Janeiro. We were presently under 

 way. The inspection of the upper berths, to the occu- 

 pancy of which we were apparently doomed, was dis- 

 heartening. I tried to effect a change, but met with no 

 encouragement from the official to whom I addressed 

 myself. He told me he could do nothing. I made up 

 my mind not to go to bed at all, but pass the night in 

 solitary vigil at an open car window r in the corridor. 

 His Excellency disappeared in the direction of the 

 compartment to which he had been assigned. I thought 

 he had retired for the n'ght, but he presently came to 

 me remarking: 'Great is diplomacy! I have made a 

 diplomatic stroke, and you can do the same thing. 

 There is an empty sleeping-car just behind the one in 

 which we now are. I discovered that the porter is 

 willing to give me a compartment to myself upon pay- 

 ment to him of five thousand reis. As we have already 

 each of us paid twenty thousand reis for an upper 

 berth, it seems a small matter to spend another five 

 thousand, or an increase of twenty per cent., to get a 

 lower in an unoccupied compartment. Get your things 

 and follow me. ' ' I thank thee, most excellent Minis- 

 ter, for this information. I gladly and at once enroll 

 myself in the corps diplomatique. ' And so it came 

 to pass that we both obtained what we had despaired 

 of getting a place in which to sleep, without having 

 underneath us in the lower berth a fellow-mortal, who 

 might drive us to the verge of insanity by snoring 

 through all the long hours of the night. 



But I could not sleep. I turned the pillows to the 

 other end of the bed next the window, and placed my- 

 self so that I could look out upon the moonlit 1 andscape. 

 I watched the outlines of the hills. I saw the fireflies 

 as they flashed forth in the shadows. I observed the 



