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Show SOUTH PARK. 161 I gazed upon the venerated wheels, " it seemed to me I could hear the wind singing a requiem over them." "Pshaw!" said he, "they are boring an artesian well down there. That's what you hear." "Perhaps so," said I, sentimentally, "but doesn't that (pointing to the coach) play upon the heartstrings a sorrowful tune of the long ago ? " " No, madame, that's the new 'classical' music of the Present." " Oh, you misunderstand me, I am not speaking of the artesian well, I have reference to the old stage." " What, that old rattle trap!" His lips curved in scorn, and looking at me as if he doubted my sanity, he replied: " Human ingenuity never constructed a more horrible machine for torturing the race. Perhaps you never traveled in one? They are as cold as Arctic wool in winter, hot as Hades in summer, put all the limbs asleep by crowding and mashing them together in impossible space, and if you are trying to catch a wink of sleep, the first thing you know you get a jolt that almost breaks your neck, and at last, more dead than alive, lands you at your destination sore, torn, battered and bruised. Oh, they are nice things, they are!" "Then 'don't abuse them," said I, "but look at them from a poetic standpoint, as promoters of the Christian virtues, by cultivating patience, hope, charity, endurance and prayerfulness." "That's all right in theory, but it would take a stronger eye of faith than mine to see it," and he continued to "punch with care," while I meditated upon the unappre-ciativeness of the average man. 11 |