The steam whistle breathed as sweetly as any church choir chanting its opening piece.

Nobody asked the conductor to see his time-table, for the only dread any passenger had was that of coming to the end of its journey.
As night came on the self-adjusting couches spread themselves on either side; patent bootjacks rolled up and took your boots off; unseen fingers tucked the damask covers all about you, and the porter took your pocket-book to keep till morning, returning it then with twice what you had in it at nightfall.

After a while the train slackens to one hundred and seventy-five miles an hour, and the conductor, in his dream, announces that they are coming near the terminus.

More brakes are dropped and they are running but ninety miles the hour; and some one, looking out of the window, says, "How slow we go!" "Yes," says the conductor, "we are holding up." Now they have almost stopped, going at only seventy miles the hour.
The long line of depot lamps are flashing along the track.

On the platform of the station are the lovers who are waiting for their betrothed, and parents who have come down to greet their children, returned with a fortune, and wives who have not been able to eat or drink since their spouses went away three weeks before.