try in a private car, without a cent of money to
buy anything to eat with. You must tell that story, Frank, while I
finish my letters; and try to tell it as well as you told it to me the
other day."

"How far did you go with the car, Frank?" I asked, when we were left
alone together again.

"About twenty-five hundred miles," he answered.

"What!"

"Twenty-five hundred miles, they say it was. I'll tell you about it," he
replied.

I saw there was a story coming, and that Frank was able to tell it well
in his own words; so I made no further interruptions.

"You know, after you've seen the lakes at Winter Park," he began, "and
the pine woods and the caged alligator, and a few hundred orange groves,
there isn't very much more for the people to see, so they go down to the
station about six o'clock every evening to see the last mail come in.
That brings through cars from the North--one sleeper from New York and
one from Chicago, that meet in Jacksonville. I got into the habit of
going to the station every evening too, and, of course, I soon got to
know all the sleepers by name. There were the Olivia, and the Tagus, and
the Marion, and perhaps a dozen in all, but only two in any one train.

"Well, one evening I was in the crowd looking at the passengers get off,
when I happened to see that there were three big cars in the train,
instead of two. The biggest of all, and the finest of all, was the last
car in the train, and I was sure I had never seen it before, so I pushed
down the platform to see its name. Queerly enough, it didn't have any
name at all: it just had the figures '100' painted in gilt letters on
its side. I looked in the windows, and saw that it was a great deal
handsomer than any of the sleepers. There were only two or three
gentlemen in the car, and they were sitting in big, comfortable
arm-chairs in a room that shone with mirrors and polished oak. There
were flowers on a table in the centre, and, at one end a couch that
looked as soft as down. But I needn't describe it to you, because it was
this very room, in this very car.

"It was only a glance I had before the train started, but that was
enough to show me that it was a private car, and to make me wonder
whether I should ever have a chance to take a ride in one. I didn't
suppose I should, at least not for a great many years. But you never can
tell about things, can you? After that the car seemed to be going up or
coming down every day or two, and I