the hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round
corners.

* * * * *

For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the unique, the
world-renowned New York-Chicago train; indeed, it would not be a gross
exaggeration to say that I came to America in order to take that train;
and at length time brought my dream true. I boarded the thing in New
York, this especial product of the twentieth century, and yet another
thrilling moment in my life came and went! I boarded it with pride;
everybody boarded it with pride; and in every eye was the gleam: "This
is the train of trains, and I have my state-room on it." Perhaps I was
ever so slightly disappointed with the dimensions and appointments of
the state-room--I may have been expecting a whole car to myself--but the
general self-conscious smartness of the train reassured me. I wandered
into the observation-car, and saw my particular friend proudly employ
the train-telephone to inform his office that he had caught the train. I
saw also the free supply of newspapers, the library of books, the
typewriting-machine, and the stenographer by its side--all as promised.
And I knew that at the other end of the train was a dining-car, a
smoking-car, and a barber-shop. I picked up the advertising literature
scattered about by a thoughtful Company, and learned therefrom that this
train was not a mere experiment; it was the finished fruit of many
experiments, and that while offering the conveniences of a hotel or a
club, it did with regularity what it undertook to do in the way of
speed and promptness. The pamphlet made good reading!...

I noted that it pleased the Company to run two other very important
trains out of the terminus simultaneously with the unique train.