Returning to where Philip sat, they decided to take lunch before going farther, and went into a small space where there was a lunch-counter, some very independent waiters, and a slap-dash way of serving that added no relish to the rather poor food. But the rest was pleasant; and after lunch they felt quite able to enter the Annex, where they found another bewildering array of locomotives, trains of cars, torpedo-boats, car-seats, rapid-fire guns, and “other things too numerous to mention,” as boys say in their compositions when they can’t think of anything else.
THE “DE WITT CLINTON” TRAIN.
They went through palace cars, and tourist cars, and English railway-trains, and then sought relief by examining a military wagon so made as to tip up and form a steel-clad breastwork. They could not pass this, for a dummy soldier was leveling his rifle directly over the edge, and a placard said, “Halt!” in very peremptory letters. It repaid them for stopping, for they decided that it was new to all of them, and a very ingenious invention.
Then leaving the building, they made their way toward home, but were caught and held by the great express engine, shown by the New York Central. They had often passed it, but had been reserving a more careful examination until they should have seen the exhibits in the Transportation Building. Now they walked through the whole train; but they found it much like the “Limited Express” they intended to be in next day, steaming along toward New York. The “De Witt Clinton,” the first locomotive used in New York State, stood in front of “999,” and looked like a dwarf kobold beside a splendidly developed giant.
THE “JOHN BULL” TRAIN.
They heard some men sneeringly say, “That was the best they could do then!” and Harry couldn’t help wondering how long the world would have had to wait for “999” if such narrow-minded men were its only dependence for improvement.
Crossing the broad white road, they next went into the Pennsylvania museum of old engines and railroad appliances. Here they spent more than an hour studying the curious history of railroad invention from the beginning. There was a model of the “John Bull,” and of its descendants from children to great-great-great-grandchildren. Nor was this display confined to locomotives: there were a packet-boat, such as Mr. Douglass remembered to have traveled in when he was a little shaver in short trousers and velvet jacket, the still more ancient Conestoga wagon with its boat-like body and long awning, and the old stage-coach labeled “Twenty days from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.”
