on and on through shadowy streets
unknown to us, until, exhausted, he insisted upon returning to our
hostelry. I fancy that there are picturesque old houses on the outskirts
of the town, but with that wall paper and a terrible nostalgia occupying
my mind, I was in no state to judge of what was there.

On reaching the hotel my companion went to bed, but I remained until
late in the office, writing letters, doing anything rather than go up to
my room. When at last I did ascend I planned to read, but the
arrangement of the light was bad, so presently I put it out and lay
there sleepless and miserable, thinking of foolish things that I have
said and done during a life rich with such items, and having chills and
fever over each separate recollection. How I drifted off to sleep at
last I do not know; all I remember is waking up next morning, leaping
out of bed and dressing in frantic haste to get out of my room. There
was but one thing in it which did not utterly offend the eye: that was
the steam pipe which ascended from floor to ceiling at one corner, and
which, being a simple, honest metal tube, was not objectionable.

As we passed through the office on our way to breakfast, the bus man
entered, and in a loud, retarded chant proclaimed: "Train for the
South!"

The impressive tones in which this announcement was delivered seemed to
call for a sudden stir, a rush for bags and coats, a general exodus,
but no one in the office moved, and I remember feeling sorry for the bus
man as he turned and went out in the midst of a crushing anti-climax.

"I wonder," I said to my companion, "if anybody ever gets up and goes
when that man calls out the trains."

"I don't believe so," he replied. "I don't think he calls trains for any
such purpose. He only warns people so they will expect to hear the
train, and not be frightened when it goes through."

* * * * *

Thomas Jefferson is most widely remembered, I suppose, as the author of
the Declaration of Independence, the third President, the purchaser of
Louisiana, and the unfortunate individual upon whom the Democratic party
casts the blame for its existence, precisely as the Republican party
blames itself on Washington and Lincoln--although the lamentable state
into which both parties have fallen is actually the fault of living men.

It is significant, however, that of this trio of Jeffersonian items,
Jefferson himself selected but one to be included