restaurant-cars were coupled on, and, as it were, instantly put to the
sack by an infuriated soldiery. The food was excellent, and newspapers
were distributed with much generosity, but some passengers, including
ladies, had to stand for another twenty minutes famished at the door of
the first car, because the breakfasting accommodation of this particular
hotel and club was not designed on the same scale as its bedroom
accommodation. We reached Chicago one hundred and ten minutes late. And
to compensate me for the lateness, and for the refrigeration, and for
the starvation, and for being forced to eat my breakfast hurriedly under
the appealing, reproachful gaze of famishing men and women, an official
at the Lasalle station was good enough to offer me a couple of dollars.
I accepted them....

[Illustration: IN THE SUBWAY ONE ENCOUNTERS AN INSISTENT, HURRYING
STREAM]

An unfortunate accident, you say. It would be more proper to say a
series of accidents. I think "the greatest train in the world" is
entitled to one accident, but not to several. And when, in addition to
being a train, it happens to be a hotel and club, and not an experiment,
I think that a system under which a serious breakdown anywhere between
Syracuse and Elkhart (about three-quarters of the entire journey) is
necessarily followed by starvation--I think that such a system ought to
be altered--by Americans. In Europe it would be allowed to continue
indefinitely.

Beyond question my experience of American trains led me to the general
conclusion that the best of them were excellent. Nevertheless, I saw
nothing in the organization of either comfort, luxury, or safety to
justify the strange belief of Americans that railroad traveling in the