Pipefuls | Page 8

ferryboat in the fog and brume of dawn,
ungluing eyelids in the bleak dividing pressure of the river breeze.
But the Owl train we propose to celebrate is the vehicle that departs
modestly from the crypt of the Pennsylvania Station in New York at
half-past midnight and emits blood-shot wanderers at West
Philadelphia at 3:16 in the morning. The railroad company, which
thinks these problems out with nice care, lulls the passengers into
unconsciousness of their woes not only by a gentle and even gait, a
progress almost tender in its carefully modulated repression of speed,
but also by keeping the cars at such an amazing heat that the victims
promptly fade into a swoon. Nowhere will you see a more complete
abandonment to the wild postures of fatigue and despair than in the
pathetic sprawl of these human forms upon the simmering plush settees.
A hot eddy of some varnish-tinctured vapour--certainly not air--rises
from under the seats and wraps the traveller in a nightmarish trance.
Occasionally he starts wildly from his dream and glares frightfully
through the misted pane. It is the custom of the trainmen, who tiptoe
softly through the cars, never to disturb their clients by calling out the

names of stations. When New Brunswick is reached many think that
they have arrived at West Philadelphia, or (worse still) have been
carried on to Wilmington. They rush desperately to the bracing chill of
the platform to learn where they are. There is a mood of mystery about
this Owl of ours. The trainmen take a quaint delight in keeping the
actual whereabouts of the caravan a merciful secret.
Oddly assorted people appear on this train. Occasional haughty
revellers, in evening dress and opera capes, appear among the humbler
voyagers. For a time they stay on their dignity: sit bravely upright and
talk with apparent intelligence. Then the drowsy poison of that stifled
atmosphere overcomes them, too, and they fall into the weakness of
their brethren. They turn over the opposing seat, elevate their nobler
shins, and droop languid heads over the ticklish plush chair-back.
Strange aliens lie spread over the seats. Nowhere will you see so many
faces of curious foreign carving. It seems as though many desperate
exiles, who never travel by day, use the Owl for moving obscurely
from city to city. This particular train is bound south to Washington,
and at least half its tenants are citizens of colour. Even the endless
gayety of our dusky brother is not proof against the venomous
exhaustion of that boxed-in suffocation. The ladies of his race are
comfortably prepared for the hardships of the route. They wrap
themselves in huge fur coats and all have sofa cushions to recline on.
Even in an all-night session of Congress you will hardly note so
complete an abandonment of disillusion, weariness, and cynical despair
as is written upon the blank faces all down the aisle. Even the
will-power of a George Creel or a Will H. Hays would droop before
this three-hour ordeal. Professor Einstein, who talks so delightfully of
discarding Time and Space, might here reconsider his theories if he
brooded, baking gradually upward, on the hot green plush.
This genial Owl is not supposed to stop at North Philadelphia, but it
always does. By this time Philadelphia passengers are awake and
gathered in the cold vestibules, panting for escape. Some of them,
against the rules of the train, manage to escape on the North
Philadelphia platform. The rest, standing huddled over the swaying
couplings, find the leisurely transit to West Philadelphia as long as the

other segments of the ride put together. Stoically, and beyond the
power of words, they lean on one another. At last the train slides down
a grade. In the dark and picturesque tunnel of the West Philadelphia
station, through thick mists of steam where the glow of the fire box
paints the fog a golden rose, they grope and find the ancient stairs.
Then they stagger off to seek a lonely car or a night-hawk taxi.

SAFETY PINS
[Illustration]
Ligature of infancy, healing engine of emergency, base and mainstay of
our civilization--we celebrate the safety pin.
What would we do without safety pins? Is it not odd to think, looking
about us on our fellowmen (bearded realtors, ejaculating poets, plump
and ruddy policemen, even the cheerful dusky creature who runs the
elevator and whistles "Oh, What a Pal Was Mary" as the clock draws
near 6 P. M.)--all these were first housed and swaddled and made
seemly with a paper of safety pins. How is it that the inventor who first
conferred this great gift on the world is not known by name for the
admiration and applause of posterity? Was it not the safety pin that
made the world safe for infancy?
There