TRAVELING WITH A REFORMER
"My dear sir, will you put down those cards?"
"All in good time, perhaps. It depends. You say this order must be obeyed. Must. It is a strong word. You see yourself how strong it is. A wise company would not arm you with so drastic an order as this, of course, without appointing a penalty for its infringement. Otherwise it runs the risk of being a dead letter and a thing to laugh at. What is the appointed penalty for an infringement of this law?"
"Penalty? I never heard of any. *
- Unquestionably you must be mistaken. Your
company orders you to come here and rudely break up an innocent amusement, and furnishes you no way to enforce the order? Don t you see that that is nonsense? What do you do when people refuse to obey this order? Do you take the cards away from them?"
"No."
"Do you put the offender off at the next station?"
"Well, no of course we couldn t if he had a ticket."
"Do you have him up before a court?"
The conductor was silent and apparently troubled. The Major started a new deal, and said:
"You see that you are helpless, and that the com pany has placed you in a foolish position. You are furnished with an arrogant order, and you deliver it in a blustering way, and when you come to look into the matter you find you haven t any way of enforcing obedience."
The conductor said, with chill dignity:
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