Thus reasoning, I lay down with a light heart in my caboose, having invoked, not the saints, but every decent Christian I could find, to take care that I might be aroused at four p.m., in order that I might have a good wash before I started on my little run of 1,500 miles, as far as Port Arthur. Just as I was falling into the arms of Morpheus, to speak poetically—a habit to which I was much given in my earlier days—a fellow-traveller came rushing into the caboose, saying timidly: ‘You’d better get on board at once. The bridge has given way, and they may go across at once,’ and so saying, he left me in the dark. However, I managed to jump out of my bed, collect my luggage, and scramble down the plank, the only and somewhat perilous means of access to my caboose, and stumble along the confusing lines of railway by which Holt City is adorned, and climb up into a car, wondering much all the while why we should start at all, when the bridge had partly given way, or whether I had come all that distance merely to find a watery grave. In the car I found a company as grotesque and rough as any I had yet seen anywhere, discussing the situation with more or less earnestness. The bridge, I heard, was being repaired; that was a comfort. But still no one knew when we should start. Now and then we moved a few feet forward, or a few feet backward; but, in reality, I believe we remained in the same position all night, and started at the usual hour next morning. But the horror of that night was something inexpressible. Sleep was quite out of the question. You can’t sleep in an American railway-car unless you are a navvy or a contractor—who can sleep anywhere. In England, even in a third-class carriage, the chances are you can lie down at your full length and sleep. In Canada you can’t do that, as the seats are too short. So there I sat, bolt upright, all through that tedious night, watching for the light of day, while my companions sat smoking and talking and expectorating. In a playful moment one of them suggested that they should all take off their boots. Fortunately the proposition did not meet with universal approval, and I was saved that horror.