Evidently Trafton was the station we had just left, and where we took on this voluble passenger. They talked of its inhabitants, its improvements, its business; of births, and deaths, and marriages. It was very uninteresting; I was beginning to feel bored, and was meditating a change of seat, when the tone of the conversation changed somewhat, and, before I could sufficiently overcome my laziness to move, I found myself getting interested.
"No, Trafton ain't a prosperous town. For the few rich ones it's well enough, but the poor—well, the only ones that prosper are those who live without work."
"Oh! the rich?"
"No! the poor. 'Nuff said."
"Oh! I see; some of the old lot there yet; wood piles suffer?"
"Wood piles!"
"And hen roosts."
"Hen roosts!" in a still deeper tone of disgust.
"Clothes lines, too, of course."
"Clothes lines!" Evidently this was the last straw. "Thunder and lightning, man, that's baby talk; there's more deviltry going on about Trafton than you could scoop up in forty ordinary towns."