THE SLEEPING CAR--A FARCE
by William D. Howells


I.


SCENE: One side of a sleeping-car on the Boston and Albany Road. The
curtains are drawn before most of the berths; from the hooks and rods
hang hats, bonnets, bags, bandboxes, umbrellas, and other travelling
gear; on the floor are boots of both sexes, set out for THE PORTER to
black. THE PORTER is making up the beds in the upper and lower berths
adjoining the seats on which a young mother, slender and pretty, with a
baby asleep on the seat beside her, and a stout old lady, sit confronting
each other--MRS. AGNES ROBERTS and her aunt MARY.

MRS. ROBERTS. Do you always take down your back hair, aunty?

AUNT MARY. No, never, child; at least not since I had such a fright
about it once, coming on from New York. It's all well enough to take
down your back hair if it _is_ yours; but if it isn't, your head's the
best place for it. Now, as I buy mine of Madame Pierrot--

MRS. ROBERTS. Don't you _wish_ she wouldn't advertise it as _human_
hair? It sounds so pokerish--like human flesh, you know.

AUNT MARY. Why, she couldn't call it _in_human hair, my dear.

MRS. ROBERTS (thoughtfully). No--just _hair_.