Hearing by the man’s snore, and seeing by his painful look, he was having an awful dream, we tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Conductor!  Turn over that seat, and take my shawl, and stretch yourself out, and have a comfortable nap.”  “Thank you, sir,” he said, and immediately sprawled himself out in the easiest way possible.  He began his slumbers just as an express train glides gracefully out of Pittsburg depot; then went at it more earnestly, lifted all the brakes, put on all the steam, and in five minutes was under splendid headway.  He began a second dream, but it was the opposite of the first.  He thought that he had just stepped on the platform of his car, and a lady handed him a bouquet fresh from the hot house.  A long line of railroad presidents and superintendents had come to the depot to see him off, and tipped their hats as he glided out into the open air.  The car was an improvement on Pullman’s best.  Three golden goblets stood at the end, and every time he turned the spigot of the water cask, it foamed soda-water—­vanilla if you turned it one way, strawberry if you turned it the other.  The spittoon was solid silver, and had never been used but once, when a child threw into it an orange peeling.  The car was filled with lords and duchesses, who rose and bowed as he passed through to collect the fare.  They all insisted on paying twice as much as was demanded, telling him to give half to the company and keep the rest for himself.  Stopped a few minutes at Jolly Town, Gleeville and Velvet Junction, making connection with the Grand Trunk and Pan-Handle route for Paradise.  But when the train halted there was no jolt, and when it started there was no jerk.  The track was always clear, no freight train in the way, no snow bank to be shoveled—­train always on time.  Banks of roses on either side, bridges with piers of bronze, and flagmen clad in cloth-of-gold.  The train went three hundred miles the hour, but without any risk, for all the passengers were insured against accident in a company that was willing to pay four times the price of what any neck was worth.  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.”