the only passenger any more. There's a lady.
She got in at El Paso. She has taken the drawing-room, but sits outside
reading newspaper cuttings and writing letters. She is sixty, I should
say, and has a cap and one gray curl. This comes down over her left ear
as far as a purple ribbon which suspends a medallion at her throat. She
came in wearing a sage-green duster of pongee silk, pretty nice, only
the buttons are as big as those largest mint-drops. "You porter," she
said, "brush this." He put down her many things and received it. Her
dress was sage green, and pretty nice too. "You porter," said she, "open
every window. Why, they are, I declare! What's the thermometer in this
car?" "Ninety-five, ma'am. Folks mostly travelling--" "That will do,
porter. Now you go make me a pitcher of lemonade right quick." She went
into the state-room and shut the door. When she came out she was dressed
in what appeared to be chintz bedroom curtains. They hang and flow
loosely about her, and are covered with a pattern of pink peonies. She
has slippers--Turkish--that stare up in the air, pretty handsome and
comfortable. But I never before saw any one travel with fly-paper. It
must be hard to pack. But it's quite an idea in this train. Fully a
dozen flies have stuck to it already; and she reads her clippings,
and writes away, and sips another glass of lemonade, all with the most
extreme appearance of leisure, not to say sloth. I can't imagine how she
manages to produce this atmosphere of indolence when in reality she is
steadily occupied. Possibly the way she sits. But I think it's partly
the bedroom curtains.

These notes were interrupted by the entrance of the new conductor.
"If you folks have chartered a private car, just say so," he shouted
instantly at the sight of us. He stood still at the extreme end and
removed his hat, which was acknowledged by the lady. "Travel is surely
very light, Gadsden," she assented, and went on with her writing. But
he remained standing still, and shouting like an orator: "Sprinkle the
floor of this car, Julius, and let the pore passengers get a breath of
cool. My lands!" He fanned himself sweepingly with his hat. He seemed
but little larger than a red squirrel, and precisely that color. Sorrel
hair, sorrel eyebrows, sorrel freckles, light sorrel mustache, thin
aggressive nose, receding chin, and black, attentive, prominent eyes.
He approached, and I gave him my ticket, which is as long as a neck-tie,
and