The next day, in all the luxury that car builders and fitters had yet been able to devise, they started upon a hilarious tour across the continent; but so far as their mode of life and amusement was concerned they might just as well have stayed on Broadway, for their nights were spent in drinking, their mornings in sleep and their afternoons in sobering up, though in all this Mrs. Wallingford held herself as much reserved and aloof as she could without spoiling the content of the others. They were merely moving a section of the rapid hotel life of New York across the country with them, and the only things which made their hours seem different were the constantly changing scenic environment and the sensation of speed. So long as they were moving swiftly they were satisfied, but a slow rate brought forth howls of discontent. It was on a small connecting line in the middle west that this annoyance reached its climax, and after an hour of exceptionally slow travel Wallingford sent for the conductor and put in a vigorous protest. Yes, there was a faster train on that road. Then why hadn't they been attached to that fast train? The conductor did not know. It was orders. "You go get different orders!" demanded Wallingford, and for another hour he made life a burden to that official. Goaded to desperation, wiring at every stop, the conductor finally, with a sigh of relief, saw the polished private car "Theodore" shunted off on the siding at Battlesburg and left behind. To the quartette of riotous travelers Battlesburg was only an uninteresting detail of their trip, which had intruded itself unbidden upon their sight; but to Battlesburg the arrival of a private car with real people in it was an epoch. Why, it might be the President! Long-legged Billy Ricks, standing idly upon the platform because the dragging hours passed by there as well as anywhere else, did not even wait to take a good look at it, but loped up the one long street, so fired with enthusiasm that he scarcely wobbled as his bony knees switched past each other in their faded blue overalls. He did not bother with people near the depot--they would find out soon enough; but at the little frame office of "Judge" Lampton, Justice of the Peace, Notary Public and Real Estate Dealer, he bobbed his head in for a moment. "Private car on the sidin'!" he bawled. "Name's 'Theodore'!" and he was gone.