One man in unblacked boots, with a full set of dusting-brush whiskers sticking up above his collarless shirt, smooth-shaven chin, red face, and a shock of iron-gray hair held in place by a slouch hat, said he'd "be doggoned if he ever knowed where he was at when he travelled on this road." Another--a man with a leather case filled with samples on the seat beside him--a restless, loud-talking man, remarked that "they ought to build a cemetery at both ends of the road, and then the mourners could go in a walk and everybody would be satisfied, instead of trying to haul trains loaded with live people that wanted to get somewheres." Another--a woman this time, in a flower-covered hat and shiny brown silk dress, new, and evidently the pride of her heart from the care she took of it--one of those crisp, breezy, outspoken women of forty-five or fifty--slim, narrow-faced, keen-eyed, with a red--quite red--nose that would one day meet an ambitious upturned chin, and straight, firm mouth, the under lip pressed tight against the upper one when her mind was made up--remarked in a voice that sounded like a buzz-saw striking a knot: "You ain't tellin' me that we're goin' to miss the train at Springfield, be ye?" This remark being addressed to the car as a whole--no single passenger having vouchsafed any such information--was received in dead silence. The arrival of the conductor, wiping the grease and grime from his hands with a wad of cotton-waste, revived hope for a moment and encouraged an air of gayety. He was a gentlemanly conductor, patient, accustomed to be abused and brief in his replies. "Maybe one hour; maybe six." The gayety ceased. The bewhiskered man said, "Well, I'll be gosh-durned!" The sample-case man said, "---- ---- ---- ---- ----" (You can fill that up at your leisure.) The woman in the brown silk rose to her feet, gathered her skirts carefully in her hand, skewered the conductor with her eye, and said: "You've gone and sp'ilt my day, that's what you've gone and done;" and, receiving no reply, crossed the aisle and plumped herself down in the overturned seat opposite the dear old lady, adding, as she shook out her skirt: "Dirt mean, ain't it?" The Dear Old Lady looked at the Woman in Brown, nodded in kindly assent, gazed at the conductor over her spectacles until he had closed the door, and said in a low, sweet voice that was addressed to nobody in particular, and yet which permeated the car like a strain of music: "Well, if we're going to be here for six hours I guess I'll knit."