Speaker 1: This is section twenty nine of The Gilded Age. This
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gilded Age,
Speaker 1: A Tale of to Day by Mark Twain and C. D. Warner,
Speaker 1: Chapter twenty nine. Philip Sterling was on his way to
Speaker 1: Ilium in the state of Pennsylvania. Ilium was the railway
Speaker 1: station nearest to the tract of wild Land, which mister
Speaker 1: Bolton had commissioned him to examine. On the last day
Speaker 1: of the journey, as the railway train Philip was on
Speaker 1: was leaving a large city, a lady timidly entered the
Speaker 1: drawing room car and hesitatingly took a chair that was
Speaker 1: at the moment unoccupied. Philip saw from the window that
Speaker 1: a gentleman had put her upon the car just as
Speaker 1: it was starting. In a few moments, the conductor entered and,
Speaker 1: without waiting an explanation, said roughly to the lady, nat,
Speaker 1: you can't sit there, that seat's taken. Go into the
Speaker 1: other car. I did not intend to take the seat,
Speaker 1: said the lady, rising. I only say down a moment
Speaker 1: till the conductor should come and give me a seat.
Speaker 1: Ain't any car's full, you'll have to leave, But sir,
Speaker 1: said the lady appealingly. I thought, that can't help what
Speaker 1: you thought. You must go into the other car. The
Speaker 1: train is going very fast. Let me stand here till
Speaker 1: we stop. The lady can have my seat, cried Philip,
Speaker 1: springing up. The conductor turned toward Philip and coolly and
Speaker 1: deliberately surveyed him from head to foot, with contempt in
Speaker 1: every line of his face, turned his back upon him
Speaker 1: without a word, and said to the lady, come, I've
Speaker 1: got no time to talk. You must go now. The lady,
Speaker 1: entirely disconcerted by such rudeness and frightened, moved towards the
Speaker 1: door and opened it and stepped out. The train was
Speaker 1: swinging along at a rapid rate, jarring from side to side.
Speaker 1: The step was a long one between the cars, and
Speaker 1: there was no protecting grating. The lady attempted it, but
Speaker 1: lost her balance in the wind and the motion of
Speaker 1: the car, and fell. She would inevitably have gone down
Speaker 1: under the wheels if Philip, who had swiftly followed her,
Speaker 1: had not caught her arm and drawn her up. He
Speaker 1: then assisted her across, found her a seat, received her
Speaker 1: bewildered thanks, and returned to his car. The conductor was
Speaker 1: still there, taking his tickets and growling something about imposition.
Speaker 1: Philip marched up to him and burst out with you
Speaker 1: are a brute, an infernal brute to treat a woman
Speaker 1: that way. Perhaps you'd like to make a fuss about it,
Speaker 1: sneered the conductor. Philip's reply was a blow, given so
Speaker 1: suddenly and planted so squarely in the conductor's face that
Speaker 1: it sent him reeling over a fat passenger who was
Speaker 1: looking up in mild wonder that anyone should dare to
Speaker 1: dispute with a conductor. And against the side of the car,
Speaker 1: he recovered himself, reached the bell rope. Damn you, I'll
Speaker 1: learn you, stepped to the door and called a couple
Speaker 1: of brakemen, and then, as the speed slackened, roared out,
Speaker 1: get off this train. I shall not get off. I
Speaker 1: have as much right here as you, we'll see, said
Speaker 1: the conductor, advancing with the brakemen. The passengers protested, and
Speaker 1: some of them said to each other, that's too bad,
Speaker 1: as they always do in such cases, but none of
Speaker 1: them offered to take a hand with Philip. The men
Speaker 1: seized him, wrenched him from his seat, dragged him along
Speaker 1: the aisle, tearing his clothes, thrust him from the car,
Speaker 1: and then flung his carpet bag, overcoat and umbrella after him,
Speaker 1: and the train went on. The conductor, red in the
Speaker 1: face and puffing from his exertion, swaggered through the car, muttering, puppy,
Speaker 1: I'll learn him. The passengers, when he had gone were
Speaker 1: loud in their indignation and talked about signing a protest,
Speaker 1: but they did nothing more than talk. The next morning,
Speaker 1: the Hooverville Patriot and Clarion had this item slatually overboard.
Speaker 1: We learn that as the down Noon Express was leaving
Speaker 1: h yesterday, a lady God save the Mark, attempted to
Speaker 1: force herself into the already full palatial car. Conductor Slum,
Speaker 1: who is too old a bird to be caught with chaff,
Speaker 1: courteously informed her that the car was full, and when
Speaker 1: she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go into
Speaker 1: the car where she belonged. Thereupon, a young sprig from
Speaker 1: the east blustered like a Shanghai rooster and began to
Speaker 1: sass the conductor with his chin. Music that gentleman delivered
Speaker 1: the young spirant for a muss. One of his elegant
Speaker 1: little left handers, which so astonished him that he began
Speaker 1: to feel for his shooter, whereupon mister Slum gently raised
Speaker 1: the youth, carried him forth, and set him down just
Speaker 1: outside the car to cool off. Whether the young blood
Speaker 1: has yet made his way out of Bascom's Swamp, we
Speaker 1: have not learned. Conductor Slum is one of the most
Speaker 1: gentlemanly and efficient officers on the road, but he ain't
Speaker 1: trifled with not much. We learned that the company have
Speaker 1: put a new engine on the seven o'clock train, and
Speaker 1: newly upholstered the drawing room car throughout. It spares no
Speaker 1: effort for the comfort of the te traveling public. Philip
Speaker 1: had never been before in Bascombe's Swamp, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing inviting in it to detain him. After the train
Speaker 1: got out of the way, he crawled out of the
Speaker 1: briars and the mud and got upon the track. He
Speaker 1: was somewhat bruised, but he was too angry to mind that.
Speaker 1: He plodded along over the ties in a very hot
Speaker 1: condition of mind and body. In the scuffle, his railway
Speaker 1: check had disappeared, and he grimly wondered, as he noticed
Speaker 1: the loss, if the company would permit him to walk
Speaker 1: over their track if they should know he hadn't a ticket.
Speaker 1: Philip had to walk some five miles before he reached
Speaker 1: a little station where he could wait for a train,
Speaker 1: and he had ample time for reflection. At first, he
Speaker 1: was full of vengeance on the company. He would sue it,
Speaker 1: he would make it pay roundly. But then it occurred
Speaker 1: to him that he did not know the name of
Speaker 1: a witness he could summon, and that a personal fight
Speaker 1: against a railway corporation was about the most hopeless in
Speaker 1: the world. He then thought he would seek out that
Speaker 1: conductor lie and wait for him at some station and
Speaker 1: thrash him or get thrashed himself. But as he got cooler,
Speaker 1: that did not seem to him a project worthy of
Speaker 1: a gentleman. Exactly was it possible for a gentleman to
Speaker 1: get even with such a fellow as that conductor on
Speaker 1: the letter's own plane? And when he came to this point,
Speaker 1: he began to ask himself if he had not acted
Speaker 1: very much like a fool. He didn't regret striking the fellow.
Speaker 1: He hoped he had left a mark on him, But
Speaker 1: after all, was that the best way here? Was he?
Speaker 1: Philip Sterling calling himself a gentleman in a brawl with
Speaker 1: a vulgar conductor about a woman he had never seen before.
Speaker 1: Why should he have put himself in such a ridiculous position.
Speaker 1: Wasn't it enough to have offered the lady his seat,
Speaker 1: to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps from death.
Speaker 1: Suppose he had simply said to the conductor, sir, your
Speaker 1: conduct is brutal. I shall report you. The passengers who
Speaker 1: saw the affair might have joined in a report against
Speaker 1: the conductor, and he might really have accomplish something. And
Speaker 1: now Philip looked at his torn clothes and thought with
Speaker 1: disgust of his haste in getting into a fight with
Speaker 1: such an autocrat. At the little station where Philip waited
Speaker 1: for the next train, he met a man who turned
Speaker 1: out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and told him his adventure. He was a kindly sort
Speaker 1: of man and seemed very much interested. Dumm Um said
Speaker 1: he when he had heard the story. Do you think
Speaker 1: anything can be done? Sir? Wow, I guess ain't no use.
Speaker 1: I ain't a mite of doubt of every word you say.
Speaker 1: But suan's no use. The railroad company owns all these
Speaker 1: people along here, and the judges on the bench too
Speaker 1: spiled your clothes, waw least said soonest mended ye ain't
Speaker 1: no chance with the company. When next morning he read
Speaker 1: the humorous account in the Patriot and Clarion, he saw
Speaker 1: still more clearly what chance he would have had before
Speaker 1: the public in a fight with the railroad company. Still,
Speaker 1: Philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty
Speaker 1: to carry the matter into the courts, even with the
Speaker 1: certainty of defeat. He confessed that neither he nor any
Speaker 1: citizen had a right to consult his own feelings or
Speaker 1: conscience in a case where a law of the land
Speaker 1: had been violated before his own eyes. He confessed that
Speaker 1: every citizen's first duty in such case is to put
Speaker 1: aside his own business and devote his time and his
Speaker 1: best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished.
Speaker 1: And he knew that no country can be well governed
Speaker 1: unless its citizens as a body keep religiously before their
Speaker 1: minds that they are the guardians of the law, and
Speaker 1: that the law officers are only the machinery for its execution,
Speaker 1: nothing more. As a finality, he was obliged to confess
Speaker 1: that he was a bad citizen, and also that the
Speaker 1: general laxity of the time and the absence of a
Speaker 1: sense of duty toward any part of the community but
Speaker 1: the individual himself, were ingrained in him, and he was
Speaker 1: no better than the rest of the people. The result
Speaker 1: of this little adventure was that Philip did not reach
Speaker 1: Ilium till daylight the next morning, when he descended, sleepy
Speaker 1: and sore from away train, and looked about him. Ilium
Speaker 1: was a narrow mountain gorge through which a rapid stream ran.
Speaker 1: It consisted of the plank platform on which he stood,
Speaker 1: a wooden house, half painted with a dirty piazza, unroofed
Speaker 1: in the front, and a sign board hung on a
Speaker 1: slanting pole bearing the legend Hotel P. Dusenheimer, a sawmill
Speaker 1: further down the stream, a blacksmith's shop and a store,
Speaker 1: and three or four unpainted dwellings of the slab variety.
Speaker 1: As Philip approached the hotel, he saw what appeared to
Speaker 1: be a wild beast crouching on the piazza. It did
Speaker 1: not stir, however, and he soon found that it was
Speaker 1: only a stuffed skin. This cheerful invitation to the tavern
Speaker 1: was the remains of a huge, huge panther which had
Speaker 1: been killed in the region a few weeks before. Philip
Speaker 1: examined his ugly visage and strong, crooked forearm as he
Speaker 1: was waiting admittance. Having pounded upon the door, yait a bit,
Speaker 1: I'll shoost put on me trousers, shouted a voice from
Speaker 1: the window, and the door was soon opened by the
Speaker 1: yawning Landlord Morgan. Didn't hear the train on set them boys,
Speaker 1: keeps me up, or so speight come Ridian. Philip was
Speaker 1: shown into a dirty bar room. It was a small
Speaker 1: room with a stove in the middle, set in a long,
Speaker 1: shallow box of sand for the benefit of the spitters.
Speaker 1: A bar crossed one end, a mere counter with a
Speaker 1: sliding glass case behind it, containing a few bottles having
Speaker 1: ambitious labels, and a wash sink in one corner. On
Speaker 1: the walls were the bright yellow and black handbills of
Speaker 1: a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats in human pyramids,
Speaker 1: horses flying in long leaps through the air, and silp
Speaker 1: flying women in a paradisiac costume balancing themselves upon the
Speaker 1: tips of their toes on the bare backs of frantic
Speaker 1: and plunging steeds and kissing their hands to the spectators. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: as Philip did not desire a room at that hour,
Speaker 1: he was invited to wash himself at the Nasty sink,
Speaker 1: a feat somewhat easier than drying his face, for the
Speaker 1: towel that hung in a roller over the sink was
Speaker 1: evidently as much a fixture as the sink itself, and
Speaker 1: blond like the suspended brush and comb to the traveling public.
Speaker 1: Philip managed to complete his toilet by the use of
Speaker 1: his pocket handkerchief, and declining the hospitality of the landlord
Speaker 1: implied in the remark you want back naughty, he went
Speaker 1: into the open air to wait for breakfast. The country
Speaker 1: he saw was wild, but not picturesque. The mountain before
Speaker 1: him might be eight hundred feet high, and was only
Speaker 1: a portion of a long, unbroken range, savagely wooded, which
Speaker 1: followed the stream behind the hotel, and across the broad
Speaker 1: fallingbrook was another level topped wooded range, exactly like it.
Speaker 1: Ilium itself, seen at a glance, was old enough to
Speaker 1: be dilapidated, and if it had gained anything by being
Speaker 1: made a wood and water station of the new railroad,
Speaker 1: it was only a new sort of grime and rawness. P. Dusenheimer,
Speaker 1: standing in the door of his uninviting groggery when the
Speaker 1: trains stopped for water, never received from the traveling public
Speaker 1: any patronage except facetious remarks. Upon his personal appearance. Perhaps
Speaker 1: a thousand times. He had heard the remark ilium free,
Speaker 1: followed in most instances by a hail to himself, as
Speaker 1: eneas with the inquiry where is all anchises? At first
Speaker 1: he had replied, dear, ain't no such man, But irritated
Speaker 1: by its senseless repetition, he had latterly dropped into the
Speaker 1: formula of you'll be damn. Philip was recalled from the
Speaker 1: contemplation of Ilium by the rolling and growling of the
Speaker 1: gong within the hotel, the din and clamor increasing till
Speaker 1: the house was apparently unable to contain it when it
Speaker 1: burst out of the front door and informed the world
Speaker 1: the breakfast was on the table. The dining room was long,
Speaker 1: low and narrow, and a narrow table extended its whole length.
Speaker 1: Upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance might
Speaker 1: have been as long in use as the towel in
Speaker 1: the bar room. Upon the table was the usual service,
Speaker 1: the heavy, much nicked stone ware, the row of plaited
Speaker 1: and rusty casters, the sugar bowls with the zinc teaspoons
Speaker 1: sticking up in them, the piles of yellow biscuits, the
Speaker 1: discouraged looking plates of butter. The landlord waited, and Philip
Speaker 1: was pleased to observe the change in his manner in
Speaker 1: the bar room. He was the conciliatory landlord, standing behind
Speaker 1: his guests at table. He had an air of peremptory patronage,
Speaker 1: and the voice in which he shot out the inquiry
Speaker 1: as he seized Philip's plate, beefstack ors liver quite took
Speaker 1: away Philip's power of choice. He begged for a glass
Speaker 1: of milk after trying that green hued compound called coffee,
Speaker 1: and made his breakfast out of that and some hard crackers,
Speaker 1: which seemed to have been imported into Ilium before the
Speaker 1: introduction of the iron Horse, and to have withstood a
Speaker 1: ten years siege of regular Borders, Greeks and others. The
Speaker 1: land that Philip had come to look at was at
Speaker 1: least five miles distant from Ilium station. A corner of
Speaker 1: it touched the railroad, and the rest was pretty much
Speaker 1: an unbroken wilderness eight or ten thousand acres of rough country,
Speaker 1: most of it such a mountain range. As he saw
Speaker 1: at Ilium. His first step was to hire three woodsmen
Speaker 1: to accompany him. By their help, he built a log
Speaker 1: hut and established a camp on the land, and then
Speaker 1: began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along,
Speaker 1: noting the timber and the lay of the land, and
Speaker 1: making superficial observations as to the prospect of coal. Lord
Speaker 1: at Ilium endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services
Speaker 1: of a witch hazel professor of that region, who could
Speaker 1: walk over the land with his wand and tell him
Speaker 1: infallibly whether it contained coal and exactly where the strait
Speaker 1: o ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his own
Speaker 1: study of the country and his knowledge of the geological formation.
Speaker 1: He spent a month in traveling over the land and
Speaker 1: making calculations, and made up his mind that a fine
Speaker 1: vein of coal ran through the mountain about a mile
Speaker 1: from the railroad, and that the place to run in
Speaker 1: a tunnel was half way towards its summit. Acting with
Speaker 1: his usual promptness, Philip, with the consent of mister Bolton
Speaker 1: broke ground there at once, and before snow came, had
Speaker 1: some rude buildings up, and was ready for active operations
Speaker 1: in the spring. It was true that there were no
Speaker 1: outcroppings of coal at the place, and the people at
Speaker 1: Ilium said he more as well dig for plug tobaccer there.
Speaker 1: But Philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's
Speaker 1: operations in ages past, and he had no doubt that
Speaker 1: he should strike at this spot the rich vein that
Speaker 1: had made the fortune of the Golden Briar Company. End
Speaker 1: of Chapter twenty nine