“Why, my dear sir, there is but one newspaper published in this city. It is the Gazette. It comes out on Saturday, and this, you know, is only Tuesday.”
“Do you mean to say that we have no daily papers?” exclaimed Ephraim, somewhat angrily.
“Daily papers! Papers published every day! Why, sir, there is not such a newspaper in the world, and there never will be.”
“Pshaw!” said Ephraim, turning his back upon the man in disgust.
The stranger smiled, and, shaking his head as if he had serious doubts of Ephraim’s sanity, passed onward.
“The man is cracked,” said Ephraim, looking after him. “No daily papers! The fellow has just come from the interior of Africa, or else he is an escaped lunatic. It is very queer that car does not come,” and Ephraim glanced up the street anxiously. “There is not a car in sight. A fire somewhere, I suppose. Too bad that I should have lost so much time. I shall walk down.”
But, as Ephraim stepped into the highway, he was surprised to find that there were no rails there. The cobblestone pavement was unbroken.
“Well, upon my word! This is the strangest thing of all. What on earth has become of the street-cars? I must go afoot, I suppose, if the distance is great. I am afraid I shall be too late for business, as it is.”
As he walked onward at a rapid pace, and his eyes fell upon the buildings along the route, he was queerly sensible that the city had undergone a certain process of transformation. It had a familiar appearance, too. He seemed to know it in its present aspect, and yet not to know it. The way was perfectly familiar to him, and he recognized all the prominent landmarks easily, and still he had an indefinable feeling that some other city had stood where this did; that he had known this very route under other conditions, and that the later conditions were those that had passed away, while those that he now saw belonged to a much earlier period.
He felt, too, that the change, whatever it was, had brought a loss with it. The buildings that lined the street now he thought very ugly. They were old, misshapen, having pent-roofs with absurdly high gables, and the shop-windows were small, dingy, and set with small panes of glass. He had known it as a handsome street, edged with noble edifices, and offering to the gaze of the pedestrian a succession of splendid windows filled with merchandise of the most brilliant description.