The Conductor Was Polite

A ffiend of mine who has just retrarned from Italy, where he has been wandering for several months, told me an amusing story with regard to on e of those railways that disfigure the high places of that delightful country, though doubtless to the lazy and the invalid they are a blessing and a boon. My friend was seated in one of the cars oéar a stour English runtrüu as they made tho ascent of a oeitain monntain. ' "And where should we go, conductor, if the brake would not work:" asked the stout lady in vile Italian. The conductor courteously esplained that iu such circurnstances there was a second brake, a duplícate safeguard, whicb might be relied upon in such an unlikely einergency. "Aud where should we go, conductor, if this second brake wonld not work?" repeated the persistent stout one. "Ah, madam," replied the official, with an inimitable shrug and smile, "that would depend on what our lives had heen.