dry.

Some of the girls wept a little and asked how far it was to the railroad station.

I didn't ask how far it was to the station. I knew what to do. I began to walk.

Do you know, I never struck such a confounded lot of ties in all my life.

The railroad must have employed non-union help. You couldn't judge them at all. You'd strike a lot that were three feet apart and think they were all that way. You'd go to sleep until you struck one at a four-foot interval; then you'd wake up pretty quick and murmur gentle nothings about the company.

About the second day out, I landed at the town of Bridgewater. I walked into the only hotel of the place and thought I'd bluff 'em a little.

"What are the rates?" says I.

"Five dollars a day and up," says the clerk.

"Oh, come off," says I, "I'm an actor."

"In that case," says he, "it's five dollars a day, down."

Toward evening, I came to a siding where a lot of box-cars were stalled. I crept on one of the trucks and went to sleep. I woke up to find I was traveling at the rate of forty miles an hour.

Suddenly I became aware that I had a visitor, and I knew my visitor had visitors, too—because I could hear him scratching.

"Say," says I, "who the dickens are you and what do you want?"

"Look here, young feller," says the visitor, "I'm Cornelius Vanderbilt out for a spin in my new automobile, and I won't be disturbed by the likes of you."

"Where do you come from?" says I.

"Maryland," says he. "My father is a great farmer down there. He raised a cabbage last year that weighed four hundred pounds. Now, who are you?"

"Why," says I, "I'm Admiral Dewey on a tour of inspection in my private car. I'm going back to Brooklyn Navy Yard to superintend the manufacture of a boiler, so large that it takes two hundred and fifty men to drive one of the rivets."

"Go slow, there," says he. "What could they do with a boiler so large as that?"

"Why," says I, "they're going to boil that cabbage your father raised."

After a little while he told me his name was Percival Reginald Van Dusenberry. He was an actor, but he had been walking longer than I.

When we struck the town of Grafton, we got off our Pullman, and began looking for the graft.

Percy went up to a cottage and rapped at the door, intending to ask for some cold victuals.

A hand shoved out and gave him a roll of green-backs. Percy was dumfounded, but took to his heels.

When we were about two miles away, Percy looked at me, and said:

"Those lobsters took me for the landlord."

We located a restaurant presently, and sat waiting at a table for an hour and a half.

Finally, Percy said to the fellow behind the desk:

"Are you the proprietor of this hash house?"

"Yes," says he.

"Well, then I want to know if you sent your waiter away, when you saw us coming, so you could charge us for a night's lodging."

Just then the waiter came in.

"Say," says I, "do you know we have been waiting here for an hour and a half?"

"That's nothing," says he, "I've been waiting here for ten years."

He placed a carafe of water on the table.