I am not a kicker. I am simply taking the preparatory lessons to enable me to blossom out. The other day when I bought a ticket to go east they told me at the ticket office:
“While the train does not leave until about eleven, the sleeper is open at nine, and you can go right to bed and wake up at Niagara Falls next morning.”
I entered the sleeper at half-past nine and went to bed. That is, it is called going to bed. You are boxed up, boxed in, surrounded and smothered and charged two dollars for the misery. A sleeping-car is a mockery, a fraud and a deception. The avarice of the companies results in misery for the passengers. Four other persons had gone to bed, and at ten o'clock we were all asleep. At that hour two men entered with a great clatter. They were talking loudly, and they sat down and continued. I waited fifteen minutes for one of the other sleepers to kick. No one uttered a protest Then I rose up and asked:
“Do you men know that this is a sleeping-car?”
“We do,” they answered.
“And do you propose to continue this disturbance?”
“We propose to talk as long and as loud as we please!”
I called the conductor and inquired:
“I have paid for a berth in which to sleep. I can't sleep for this disturbance. Will you stop it?”
“Really, I can't,” he answered.