TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 3 



too expensive to indulge in them very often. Our 

 regret was that we hadn't known the charge at the 

 time. We should certainly have run the taps all 

 over again, and had a second dip, in the laudable 

 desire to get our money's worth. 



A trip across America is so familiar to most people 

 that there really isn't much that is new to say about 

 it. The gymnastic feat of undressing on one's berth, 

 with the upper one pressing down upon one's head 

 like the lid of a box; the persistency of the ticket 

 collector, who acquires a sort of second wind of most 

 unnecessary activity during the midnight hours; the 

 delight of playing Horatius in the poky little dress- 

 ing-room, holding it against a crowd of infuriated 

 fellow-passengers, cease to interest at last from con- 

 stant habit. But the astonishment one feels at the 

 much-vaunted excellence of the sleeping arrangements 

 is ever new. Could publicity farther go ? Is a Pull- 

 man sleeping-car the place for domesticity run ram- 

 pant? I only ask mildly. It seems to me that to 

 portion out the car o' nights, half for the men folk, 

 half for the women portion of the travelling com- 

 munity, would improve matters all round. Then, by 

 dropping a curtain in the centre of the passage-way, 

 the joyful consummation of somewhere to undress 

 would be arrived at, and all the embarrassing waving 

 of apparel, muddled up with curtains and cuss-words, 

 would be avoided. But I hate carping, so I'll stop. 



It is glorious lying on one's berth, with the blinds 

 of the windows up, as the vast train sweeps up some 

 snow-clad giant slope, and down again to a pathless 



