The bedchamber was delightful, the lavatory amounted to a boudoir, the reading-lamp left nothing to desire, the ventilation was a continuous vaudeville entertainment, the watch-pocket was adorable, the mattress was good.  Even the road-bed was quite respectable—­not equal to the best I knew, probably, but it had the great advantage of well-tied rails, so that as the train passed from one rail-length to the next you felt no jar, a bliss utterly unknown in Europe.  The secret of a satisfactory “sleeper,” however, does not lie in the state-room, nor in the glittering lavatory, nor in the lamp, nor in the fan, nor in the watch-pocket, nor in the bed, nor even in the road-bed.  It lies in the mannerisms of that brave fellow out there in front of you on the engine, in the wind and the rain.  But no one in all America seemed to appreciate this deep truth.  For myself, I was inclined to go out to the engine-driver and say to him:  “Brother, are you aware—­you cannot be—­that the best European trains start with the imperceptible stealthiness of a bad habit, so that it is impossible to distinguish motion from immobility, and come to rest with the softness of doves settling on the shoulders of a young girl?” ...  If the fault is not the engine-driver’s, then are the brakes to blame?  Inconceivable!...  All American engine-drivers are alike; and I never slept a full hour in any American “sleeper,” what with stops, starts, hootings, tollings, whizzings round sharp corners, listening to the passage of freight-trains, and listening to haughty conductor-admirals who quarreled at length with newly arrived voyagers at 2 or 3 A.M.!  I do not criticize; I state.  I also blame myself.  There are those who could sleep.  But not everybody could sleep.  Well and heartily do I remember the moment when another friend of mine, in the midst of an interminable scolding that was being given by a nasal-voiced conductor to a passenger just before the dawn, exposed his head and remarked:  “Has it occurred to you that this is a sleeping-car?” In the swift silence the whirring of my private fan could be heard.

I arrived in New York from Washington, as I arrived at all my destinations after a night journey, in a state of enfeebled submissiveness, and I retired to bed in a hotel.  And for several hours the hotel itself would stop and start with a jerk and whiz round corners.

* * * * *

For many years I had dreamed of traveling by the great, the unique, the world-renowned New York-Chicago train; indeed, it would not be a gross exaggeration to say that I came to America in order to take that train; and at length time brought my dream true.  I boarded the thing in New York, this especial product of the twentieth century, and yet another thrilling moment in my life came and went!  I boarded it with pride; everybody boarded it with pride; and in every eye was the gleam:  “This is the train of trains, and I have my state-room on it.”  Perhaps