Page:Following the Equator (Mark Twain).djvu/303

Rh midnight: clang―clang―clang― clang― clang―clang―clang―clang ―clang―clang―clang―clang!—and, by that time you're—hello, what's all this excitement about? Oh, I see―a runaway—scared by the train; why, you wouldn't think this train could scare anything. Well, of course, when they build and run eighty stations at a loss, and a lot of palace—stations and clocks like Maryborough's at another loss, the government has got to economize somewhere, hasn't it? Very well—look at the rolling stock! That's where they save the money. Why, that train from Maryborough will consist of eighteen freight-cars and two passenger-kennels; cheap, poor, shabby, slovenly; no drinking water, no sanitary arrangements, every imaginable inconvenience; and slow?—oh, the gait of cold molasses; no air-brake, no springs, and they'll jolt your head off every time they start or