Between the seats there is a space of two feet, but in that space you will always find four feet and their owners, unless one of them happens to have a wooden leg. Under ordinary circumstances four into two won't go, but the sardine-cars defy the laws of gravitation.
A sardine-car conductor can put twenty-six into nine and still have four to carry.
The idea of expansion which is now used by our Congress was suggested by one of these sardine-cars.
The ladies of America have started a rebellion against the sardine-cars, but every time they start it the conductor pulls the bell and leaves the rebellious standing on the corner.
We are a very nervous and careless people in America. To prove how careless we are I will cite the fact that Manhattan Island is called after a cocktail.
This nervousness is our undoing because we are always in such a hurry to get somewhere that we would rather take the first car and get squeezed into breathlessness than wait for the next which would likely squeeze us into insensibility.
Breathlessness can be cured, but insensibility is dangerous without an alarm clock.
For a man with a small dining-room the sardine-car has its advantages, but when a stout man rides in them he finds himself supporting a lot of strangers he never met before.
One morning I jumped on one of those sardine-cars feeling just like a two-year-old, full of health and happiness.