We, we were city bred to the bone, and noise was essential to us as ozone is to the country lad. He cannot sleep with noise,—we could not sleep without it.
Our musings—we had not spoken for a long time—were interrupted by Dempsey, who had fallen over a rail, which he had not noticed in the shadowy Darkness. Yes, it was a full-fledged railroad track and, for some obscure reason, it seemed to possess a great deal of fascination for us. We were apparently not able to get away from it. We stood and looked at it as if we had never seen a railroad track before.
This lasted until the ever-ready Casey interpreted our feelings.
"I wonder if this is the Pennsylvania railroad?"
That started a chorus of "wonders."
"I wonder which end of this runs into New York;" "I wonder how far we are from New York;" "I wonder if we could get to New York from here;" "I wonder how long it takes to get to New York from here;" "I wonder if there is a station near here."
How it happened, whether any one proposed it, or how we got there I do not know, but I do know that, quite unexpectedly, we found ourselves at a little wayside station, with a lot of milk cans on its platform. There is no mistaking the fact that we were entirely unbalanced mentally, and it was a good thing for the crew of the freight train, which rolled in to unload and load milk cans, that they were an easy-going crowd of men. We made no pretense of hiding ourselves, but climbed boldly on to the cars and would have committed murder had they attempted to put us off. The spectre of the stillness had taken possession of our brains, and we wanted to flee from it as from a plague.
Again the long, cold journey, and, then, at last, a great white sheen of shining lustre in the heavens told us that we were home once more to the city of our birth, of which we were so proud.
But could she be proud of us?
The rest of the night, or rather the beginning of the day, was spent in chairs in Callahan's back-room, which seemed like paradise to us after our "fierce" experience in the country. After a nap, I went to look for my Bill, who greeted me as if I had left him alone as long as I did on our previous separation, and then again settled down to grace Callahan's dive with my presence.