Before the "ladies" had arrived--half an hour, in fact, before one of them had put in an appearance--I was seated at a small table covered with a clean cloth (I had set the table) with half a ham, a whole loaf of bread, a pitcher of milk that had been left outside in the snow and was full of lovely ice crystals, a smoking cup of coffee and a smoking pile of griddle cakes which the woman had compounded from the contents of two paper packages, and which she herself had cooked on a gas griddle--and very good cakes they were: total cost, as per schedule, fifty cents. Breakfast over, I again sought the seclusion of the Torture Chamber. The man with the piece of chalk had been kept busy. No. 31 was now one hour and forty-two minutes late. When it finally reached Jackson and I boarded it with my grip and overcoat, it looked as if it had run into a glacier somewhere up the road and had half a snowslide still clinging to its length. Day had broken now, and what light could sift its way through the falling flakes, shone cold and gray into the frost-dimmed windows of the car. I had lost more than two hours of my leeway of three, and the drifts were still level with the hubs of the driving-wheels. We shunted and puffed and jerked along, waiting on side tracks for freight trains hours behind time and switching out of the way of delayed "Flyers," and finally reached Adrian. (Does anybody know of a Flyer that is on time when but a bare inch of snow covers the track?) Out of the car again, still lugging my impedimenta. "Train for Toledo and the East, did you say?" answered the ticket agent. "Yes, No. 32 is due in ten minutes--she's way behind time and so you've just caught her. Your ticket is good, but you can't carry no baggage." The information came as a distinct shock. No baggage meant no proper habiliments in which to appear before my distinguished and critical audience--the most distinguished and critical which I ever had the good fortune to address--a young ladies' school. "Why no baggage?" "'Cause there's nothing but Pullmans, and only express freight carried--it's a news train. Ought to have been here a week ago." "Can I give up my check and send my trunk by express?" "Yes. That's the agent over there by the radiator." One American dollar accomplished it--a silver one; they don't use any other kind of money out West. When No. 32 hove in sight--the Fast Mail is its proper name--and stopped opposite the small station at Adrian, a blessed, beloved, be-capped, be-buttoned and be-overcoated Pullman porter--an attentive, considerate, alert porter--emerged from it and at a sign from me picked up my overcoat and grip--they now weighed a ton apiece--and with a wave of his hand conducted me into a well-swept, well-ordered Pullman. "Porter, what's your name?" I inquired. (I always ask a porter his name.) "Samuel Thomas, sah." "Sam, is there a berth left?" "Yes, sah--No. 9 lower." "Is it in order?"