carafes, the white-coated stewards at attention.  At the car’s kitchen window lolls a young coloured boy in a chef’s hat, surveying the files of proletarian commuters with a glorious calmness of scorn and superiority.  His mood of sanguine assurance and self-esteem is so complete, so unruffled, and so composed that we cannot help loving him.  Lucky youth, devoid of cares, responsibilities, and chagrins!  Does he not belong to the conquering class that has us all under its thumb?  What does it matter that he (probably) knows less about cooking than you or I?  He gazes with glorious cheer upon the wretched middle class, and as our train rolls away we see him still gazing across the darkling cellars of the station with that untroubled gleam of condescension, his eyes seeming (as we look back at them) as large and white and unspeculative as billiard balls.

In the eye of one commuter, the 12:50 SATURDAY ONLY is the most exciting train of all.  What a gay, heavily-bundled, and loquacious crowd it is that gathers by the gate at the Atlantic Avenue terminal.  There is a holiday spirit among the throng, which pants a little after the battle down and up those steps leading from the subway. (What a fine sight, incidentally, is the stag-like stout man who always leaps from the train first and speeds scuddingly along the platform, to reach the stairs before any one else.) Here is the man who always carries a blue cardboard box full of chicks.  Their plaintive chirpings sound shrill and disconsolate.  There is such a piercing sorrow and perplexity in their persistent query that one knows they have the true souls of minor poets.  Here are two cheerful stenographers off to Rockaway for the week-end.  They are rather sarcastic about another young woman of their party who always insists on sleeping under sixteen blankets when at the shore.

But the high point of the trip comes when one changes at Jamaica, there boarding the 1:15 for Salamis.  This is the train that on Saturdays takes back the two famous club cars, known to all travellers on the Oyster Bay route.  Behind partly drawn blinds the luncheon tables are spread; one gets narrow glimpses of the great ones of the Island at their tiffin.  This is a militant moment for the white-jacketed steward of the club car.  On Saturdays there are always some strangers, unaccustomed to the ways of this train, who regard the two wagons of luxury as a personal affront.  When they find all the seats in the other cars filled they sternly desire to storm the door of the club car, where the proud steward stands on guard.  “What’s the matter with this car?” they say.  “Nothing’s the matter with it,” he replies.  Other more humble commuters stand in the vestibule, enjoying these little arguments.  It is always quite delightful to see the indignation of these gallant creatures, their faces seamed with irritation to think that there should be a holy of holies into which they may not tread.