Truth to tell, America these days is bathed in luxury. America stands ready to pay the price; but America demands the service.[16] And the lesson of the excess-fare trains is one that the railroader who thinks as he reads may well take to heart. Some of them are giving it consideration already. One big road has had for some time past under advisement a scheme by which it would make a ticket charge of one-half cent a mile extra for those of its passengers who chose to ride in sleeping or parlor cars. In this way it would compensate itself for the lack of any portion of the Pullman Company's direct revenue. * * * * * A certain big railroader out in the Middle West has very determined opinions in regard to the possibility of the passenger end of the railroad receipts being increased. Like many of the big operating men he affects a small regard for the passenger service. And this despite the fact that if you touch the average railroader, big or little, upon his tenderest spot, his pride in his property, he will talk to you in glowing terms of the "Limited," the road's biggest and fastest show train--showy from the barber shop and the bath in her buffet car, to the big brass-railed observation platform at the rear. He will not talk to you at length of his freight trains, but he will prate unceasingly of Nineteen's "record"--how she ran ninety-eight per cent on time last month, a good showing for a train scheduled to make her thousand miles or so well inside of twenty-four hours. This big railroader of the Middle West does not, however, take your time in mere boasting of his operating record. He comes to cases, and comes quickly--to the question of increased passenger rates when our present flood tide of traffic has descended to the normal.