A Flight in Spring / In the car Lucania from New York to the Pacific coast and back, during April and May, 1898

OUR HOST.
Dedication
TO THE LUCANIANS :
THESE RANDOM JOTTINGS OF OUR HAPPY FLIGHT IN SPRING, ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
BY THEIR FRIEND
THE POPE
CONTENTS.
A FLIGHT IN SPRING
The Circumstances of the Flight. — The Start. — The Car Lucania.  — The Kitchen. — The Cook. — The Poetic Dinner. — Our Accommodations. — Visitors at Newark. — Improvised Theatricals. — Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, Washington. — The Approaching War Crisis.
It seemed like a dream to be invited to join a party on a private Pullman car for an extended tour of close on eight thousand miles, all in these our United States! Yet such was the opportunity which was generously offered us in this springtime of 1898.
It was to be A Flight in Spring of most intense interest. The journey was to embrace in its continued circuit, from New York back to New York, points as widely separated as New Orleans and San Francisco. It was to traverse many States and Territories, and was to be accomplished with every adjunct of unstinted comfort and refinement.
The expected morning when we were to start on our journey came at last, with that subdued wonder in it that the dream, so unlooked for, was really to be a fact. Bags and satchels were all packed, and with that happy feeling which always comes to the tourist when, all ready, he is safely ensconced in his cab, we sped to the Twenty-third Street ferry for the Pennsylvania depot in Jersey City.