Travelers by railroad, who stop at the "eating stations," and are hurried away by the supernatural shriek of the locomotive before they have begun their repast, will appreciate and laugh at the following:
"We have sometimes seen in a pastry-cook's window, the announcement of 'Soups hot till eleven at night,' and we have thought how very hot the said soups must be at ten o'clock in the morning; but we defy any soup to be so red-hot, so scorchingly and so intensely scarifying to the roof of the mouth, as the soup you are allowed just three minutes to swallow at the railway stations. In the course of our perigrinations, a day or two ago, we had occasion to stop at a distant station. A smiling gentleman, with an enormous ladle, said insinuatingly:
"'Soup, sir?'
"'Thank you—yes.'
"Then the gigantic ladle was plunged into a caldron, which hissed with hot fury at the intrusion of the ladle.
"We were put in possession of a plateful of a colored liquid, that actually took the skin off our face by mere steam. Having paid for the soup, we were just about to put a spoonful to our lips when a bell was rung, and the gentleman who had suggested the soup, ladled out the soup, and got the money for the soup, blandly remarked:
"'Sir, the train is just off!'
"We made a desperate thrust of a spoonful into our mouth, but the skin peeled off our lips, tongue, and palate, like the 'jacket' from a hot potato."
Probably the same soup was served out to the passengers by the next train. Meanwhile the "soup-vendor smiled pleasantly, and evidently enjoyed the fun!"