d will grow. Long
life to it! Every year the city directory points with pride to its
growing bulk. A hundred thousand people; and, as Max O'Rell said--"All
alive and kicking!" Herculaneum held its neighbors in hearty contempt,
like the youth who has suddenly found his man's strength, and parades
round with a chip on his shoulder.

Three railroad lines ran through the business section, bisecting the
principal thoroughfares. The passenger trains went along swiftly
enough, but often freights of almost interminable length drawled
through the squares. I say drawled advisedly. Surely the whuff-whuff
of the engine seems to me a kind of mechanical speech; and to this was
often added the sad lowing of cattle. From time to time some earnest
but misdirected young man would join the aldermanic body, and
immediately lift up his voice in protest. It was outrageous, and so
forth; the railroads must be brought to their senses, and so forth.
Presently a meeting would come and go without his voice being heard,
another, and yet another. By and by he would silently cast his vote
for the various businesses under hand, and go home. The old-timers
would smile. They understood. They rode on annuals themselves.

All the same, Herculaneum was a beautiful city in parts. Great leafy
maples and elms arched the streets in the residential quarters, and
the streets themselves were broad and straight. There were several
dignified buildings of ten and twelve stories, many handsome banks,
several clubs, and two or three passable monuments. There were at that
time five enterprising newspapers, four frankly partizan and one
independent. Personalities entered freely into the editorials, which
often abounded in wit and scholarship. There were three theaters, and
many churches of many denominations; religion and amusement, to
thrive, must have variety. There were great steel shops,
machine-shops, factories and breweries. And there were a few people
who got in touch with one another, and invented society.

Herculaneum has its counterpart in every state; each city is a
composite of all the others. A fashion in New York is immediately
reproduced in every other city on the continent. Conservatism, day by
day, becomes more and more retiring; presently it will exist only in
Webster, side by side with the word prehistoric.

It was Sunday in Herculaneum, a June Sunday, radiant with sunshine.
The broad green leaves of the maples shivered, lacing the streets with