Part 46 (1/2)

”Oh,” she replied--and seemed to hesitate for just an instant--”Mr.

Woods has given us instructions always to call by name.”

”You mean in my case?” I asked, somewhat nervously.

”In making all morning calls,” she explained. ”At night, when the night operator isn't busy, she takes the call list, gets the names of the people, and notes them down opposite the room numbers so that I can read them off, when I ring, in the morning. Mr. Woods says that it makes guests feel more at home.”

”It does,” I a.s.sured her sadly. Then, in justice, I added: ”Nevertheless you have a most agreeable voice.”

”It's very kind of you to speak of it,” she returned.

”Not at all,” said I. ”I am writing something about San Francisco, and I want to know your name so that I can mention you as the owner of the voice.”

”Oh,” she said, ”are you a writer?”

”I am,” I declared firmly.

”And you're really going to mention me?”

”I am if you will give me your name.”

”It's Lulu Maguire,” she said. ”Will you let me know when it comes out?”

”I will,” said I.

”Thank you very much,” she answered. ”I hope you'll come again.”

”I hope so too.”

Then we said good-by. And though I cannot say of the angel-voiced Miss Maguire that she taught me about women, she did teach me something about writers, and something else about hotels.

I had always fancied that an unbroken flight across the continent would prove fatiguing and seem very, very long, but however others may have found it, it seemed short to me.

Looking back over the run from the Pacific Coast to Chicago I feel as though it had consumed but a night and one long, interesting day--a day full of changing scenes and episodes. The three things I remember best about the journey are the beauty of the Bad Lands, the wonderful squab guinea chicken I had, one night, for dinner, in the dining car, and the pretty girl with the demure expression and the mischievous blue eyes, who, before coming aboard at a little western station, kissed a handsome young cattleman good-by, and who, having later made friends with a gay young blade upon the train, kissed him good-by, also, when they parted on the platform in Chicago.

Railroad travel in the West does not seem so machine-like as in the East. That is true in many ways. West of Chicago you do not feel that your train is sandwiched in between two other trains, one just ahead, the other just behind. You run for a long time without pa.s.sing another train, and when you do pa.s.s one, it is something in the nature of an event, like pa.s.sing another s.h.i.+p, at sea. So, also, on the train, the relations between pa.s.sengers and crew are not merely mechanical. You feel that the conductor is a human being, and that the dining-car conductor is distinctly a nice fellow.

But once you pa.s.s Chicago, going east, the individuality of train officials ceases to be felt. They become automatons, very efficient, but cold as cogs in a machine. As for you, you are a unit, to be transported and fed, and they do transport and feed you, doing it all impartially and impersonally, performing their duties with the most rigid decorum, and the most cold-blooded correctness.

Even the food in the dining-car seems to be standardized. The dishes look differently, and vary mildly in flavor, but there is one taste running through everything, as though the whole meal were made from some basic substance, colored and flavored in different ways, to create a variety of courses. The great primary taste of eastern dining-car food is, as nearly as I can hit on it, that of wet paper. The oysters seem to be made of slippery wet paper with oyster-flavor added. The soup is a sort of creamy essence of manilla. The chicken is damp paper, ground up, soaked with chicken-extract, and pressed into the form of a deceased bird. And, above all, the salad is green tissue-paper, soaked in vinegar and water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: New York--Everyone is in a hurry. Everyone is dodging everyone else. Everyone is trying to keep his knees from being knocked by swift-pa.s.sing suitcases]

As with the officials, so with the pa.s.sengers. They become frigid, too.

If, forgetting momentarily that you are no longer in the West, you speak to the gentleman who has the seat beside you in the buffet smoker, after dinner, he takes a long appraising look at you before replying. Then, after answering you briefly, and in such a way as to give you as little information as possible, and to impress upon you the idea that you have been guilty of gross familiarity in speaking to a social superior without having first been spoken to by him--then the gentleman will rise from his chair and move to another seat, feeling, the while, to make sure that you have not got his watch.