No railway official has ever
given me a satisfactory explanation of it. As the car, in a rapid
run, is always slightly projected forward of its trucks, a
practical friend once suggested to me that it was the gradual
settling back of the car body to a state of inertia, which, of
course, every poetical traveler would reject. Four o'clock the
sound of boot-blacking by the porter faintly apparent from the
toilet-room. Why not talk to him? But, fortunately, I remembered
that any attempt at extended conversation with conductor or porter
was always resented by them as implied disloyalty to the company
they represented. I recalled that once I had endeavored to impress
upon a conductor the absolute folly of a midnight inspection of
tickets, and had been treated by him as an escaped lunatic. No,
there was no relief from this suffocating and insupportable
loneliness to be gained then. I raised the window-blind and looked
out. We were passing a farm-house. A light, evidently the lantern
of a farm-hand, was swung beside a barn. Yes, the faintest tinge
of rose in the far horizon.
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