And speaking of street cars, John, Uncle Peter resumed after a long pause, I was in one of those cities recently where some of the cars stop on the near side of some of the streets and some stop on the far side of some of the streets.
Honestly, John, they had me up in the air.
I left the hotel to attend to some business downtown and went over on the near side of the street to wait for a car.
When the car came along I held my thumb out in the atmosphere warningly, but the motorman kept on to the far side and stopped.
By the time I ran over to the far side he was gone again and another car had stopped at the near side.
When I rushed back to the near side the car passed me going to the far side, and now the near side looked so much like the far side that I went back to the other side, which should have been the near side, but how could it be the near side when the car was on the far side and I could not get near the near side in time to catch the car before it was far away on the far side?
Just as I rushed back again to the far side the near side became the nearer side to catch the car, and when I rushed over again from the far side to the near side the nearer I got to the near side the clearer I could see that while the far side was far away it was nearer than the near side, which was always on the far side when I hoped to take a car on the near side.
Then I began to grit my teeth and made up my mind to anticipate the action of the next car by standing half way between the near side and the far side, so that I could run to either side the emergency called for.
I was standing there about a minute much pleased with the idea, because the near side was now about as far away as the far side, when just then an automobile sneaked up behind me and one of the forward turrets struck me on my own personal far side and hoisted me over to the near side just as a car left for the far side.
I reached out my hand to grasp the far side of the step, but I missed it and caught the near side, and by this time the car was on the far side and the motorman grabbed the near side of the electric controller and pushed it over to the far side, whereupon the car started for El Paso, Texas, at a speed of about 3,000 miles a minute, and there I was with the near side of four fingers holding on to the far side of the step and the rest of my body sticking straight out in space like a pair of trousers on a clothes-line in a gale of wind.