He asked people their ages, whence they came, where they were going; what they did for a living; if they drank; if they smoked; if their parents were alive; what their beefsteak cost them a pound; what kind of underwear they wore; what church they attended; if they shaved themselves; if married; if single; the number of their children; why they did not have more children; how many trunks they had in the baggage-car; whether they had seen to it that their trunks were put on board, etc. Very young men sometimes gave him joking and sportive answers; but it did not take him long to catch such drifts, and he usually managed to crush their sponsors thoroughly. For he had the great white dignity of years upon his head; and the dignity of two or three hundred million dollars at his back. During his peregrinations he came to a closed door which tempted him strangely. It was probably the door of a private state-room; it might be the door of a dust closet. He meditated, with his finger upon the knob. "I'll just open it slowly," he thought, "and if I make a mistake I'll say I thought it was a smoking compartment." As the door opened a smell of roses came out. Huddled into the seat that rides forward was a beautiful girl, very much dishevelled and weeping bitterly, with her head upon one of those coarse white pillows which the Pullman Company provides. Her roses lay upon the seat opposite. She was so self-centred in her misery that she was not aware that the door had been opened, a head thrust in and withdrawn, and the door closed. But she was sure that a still, small voice had suddenly spoken in her mind, and said: "Brace up." Presently she stopped crying, as became one who had been made the subject of a manifestation, and began to put her hair in order at the narrow mirror between the two windows. Meanwhile, though Mr. Holiday was making himself scarce, as the saying is, he was consumed with interest to know why the beautiful girl was weeping. _And he meant to find out_. But in the meantime another case provoked his interest. A handsome woman of thirty-five occupied Section 7 in Car 6. She was dressed in close-fitting black, with a touch of white at her throat and wrists. Mr. Holiday had seen her from the extreme end of the car, and by the time he was opposite to where she sat it became necessary for him to have an answer to the questions that had presented themselves about her. Without any awkward preliminaries, he bent over and said: "I've been wondering, ma'am, if you are dressed in black for your father or your husband." She looked up, recognized the famous eccentric, and smiled. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Holiday?" she said, and made room for him. "I wear black," she said, when he had seated himself, "not because I am in mourning for anybody, but because I think it's becoming to me. You see, I have very light-colored hair." "Does all that hair grow on your head?" Mr. Holiday asked, simply and without offence. "Every bit of it," she said.