is "right away!" ...

I sat down in my appointed place in the all-steel car, and, turning over
the pages of a weekly paper, saw photographs of actual collisions,
showing that in an altercation between trains the steel-and-wood car
could knock the all-steel car into a cocked hat!... The decoration of
the all-steel car does not atone for its probable combustibility and its
proved fragility. In particular, the smoking-cars of all the Limiteds I
intrusted myself to were defiantly and wilfully ugly. Still, a fine,
proud train, handsome in some ways! And the trainmen were like admirals,
captains, and first officers pacing bridges; clearly they owned the
train, and had kindly lent it to the Pennsylvania R.R. Their demeanor
expressed a rare sense of ownership and also of responsibility. While
very polite, they condescended. A strong contrast to the miserable
European "guard"--for all his silver buttons! I adventured into the
observation-car, of which institution I had so often heard Americans
speak with pride, and speculated why, here as in all other cars, the
tops of the windows were so low that it was impossible to see the upper
part of the thing observed (roofs, telegraph-wires, tree-foliage,
hill-summits, sky) without bending the head and cricking the neck. I do
not deny that I was setting a high standard of perfection, but then I
had heard so much all my life about American Limiteds!

The Limited started with exactitude, and from the observation-car I
watched the unrolling of the wondrous Hudson tunnel--one of the major
sights of New York, and a thing of curious beauty.... The journey passed
pleasantly, with no other episode than that of dinner, which cost a
dollar and was worth just about a dollar, despite the mutton. And with
exactitude we arrived at Washington--another splendid station. I
generalized thus: "It is certain that this country understands railroad
stations." I was, however, fresh in the country, and had not then seen
New Haven station, which, as soon as it is quite done with, ought to be
put in a museum.

We returned from Washington by a night train; we might have taken a day
train, but it was pointed out to me that I ought to get into "form" for
certain projected long journeys into the West. At midnight I was
brusquely introduced to the American sleeping-car. I confess that I had
not imagined anything so appalling as the confined, stifling, malodorous
promiscuity of the American sleeping-car, where men a