I remember that we discussed that question on the train, leaving St. Louis, wondering whether Kansas City, whither we were bound, would prove to be but one more city like the rest--a place with skyscrapers and shops and people resembling, almost exactly, the skyscrapers and shops and people of a dozen other cities we had seen. Morning in the sleeping car found us less concerned about the character of cities than about our coffee. Coffee was not to be had upon the train. In cheerless emptiness we sat and waited for the station. While my berth was being turned into its daytime aspect, I was forced to accept a seat beside a stranger: a little man with a black felt hat, a weedy mustache of neutral color, and an Elk's button. I had a feeling that he meant to talk with me; a feeling which amounted to dread. Nothing appeals to me at seven in the morning; least of all a conversation. At that hour my enthusiasm shows only a low blue flame, like a gas jet turned down almost to the point of going out. And in the feeble light of that blue flame, my fellow man becomes a vague shape, threatening unsolicited civilities. I do not like the hour of seven in the morning anywhere, and if there is one condition under which I loathe it most, it is before breakfast in a smelly sleeping car. I saw the little man regarding me. He was about to speak. And there I was, absolutely at his mercy, without so much as a newspaper behind which to shield myself. "Are you from New York?" he asked. With about the same amount of effort it would take to make a long after-dinner speech, I managed to enunciate a hollow: "Yes." "I thought so," he returned. It seemed to me that the remark required no answer. He waited; then, presently, vouchsafed the added information: "I knew it by your shoes." Mechanically I looked at my shoes; then at his. I felt like saying: "Why? Because my shoes are polished?" But I didn't. All I said was, "Oh." "That's a New York last," he explained. "Long and flat. You can't get a shoe like that out in this section. Nobody'd buy 'em if we made 'em." Then he added: "I'm in the shoe line, myself." He paused as though expecting me to state my "line." However, I didn't. Very likely he thought it something shameful. After a moment's silence, he asked: "Travel out this way much?" "Never," I said. "Never been in Kansas City?" I shook my head. "Well," he volunteered, "it's a great town. Greatest farm implement market in the world." (He drawled "world" as though it were spelled with a double R.) "Very little manufacturing but a great distributing point. All cattle and farming out here. Everything depends on the crops. Different from the East." I looked out of the window. It _was_ different from the East. Even through the smoky fog I saw that. "Kansas City!" called the negro porter. I arose with a sigh, said good-by to the little man, and made my way from the car.