We did not, “by a large majority,” as Bardwell Slote says. It was a tedious and unsatisfactory journey. So soon as we left the West Shore line we began to have trouble. It was on a short section of an unimportant road that we encountered most delay, the character of which will be best illustrated by a brief conversation between Irving and several other persons:—
“Well, what is the matter now, George?” Irving asked the colored conductor of the private car.
“Oh, this is the third time he’s stopped in the woods to tinker up his darned old engine,” said George; “seems it needs it!”
Everybody laughed at this rough criticism of the engineer and his locomotive.
“Stops in the woods, eh?” says Irving,—“that nobody may see him? But suppose another train comes along?”
“If the brakeman should neglect to go back and flag it, there might be no performance at the Boston Theatre on Monday,” said Palser. “That is how Wagner, the car-builder, lost his life. He was killed in one of his own cars, on the New York Central. The train stopped suddenly,—it is said somebody on board pulled the check-string in joke,[53]—and an oncoming train, not being warned, ran into them, and Mr. Wagner was killed.”
“Ah,” Irving replied, “there must have been a good deal of flag-signalling done on this journey of ours, seeing how often we have stopped.”
“Yes, that’s so; yah, yah!” remarks the privileged colored servant.
“I don’t think any of the tracks we have crossed are as good as the Pennsylvania,” said Irving; “they are certainly not as good as the Midland or Great Western in England. The West Shore road is evidently a fine one; but I have more than once during our travels been reminded of a story I came across recently, relating to a passenger’s question: ‘We’ve struck a smoother strip of road, have we not?’ The Arkansas railway conductor replied, ‘No, we’ve only run off the track.’”
“Yah! yah!” shouted George, as he disappeared to tell the story to Peter in the kitchen.