rong for improvements--extensions, more franchises, better cars,
better horses, stoves in the cars in winter, and the like, all of which
suggestions sounded to his fellow-directors like mere manifestations of
the reckless impetuosity of youth, and were almost uniformly opposed.

"What's the matter with them cars?" asked Albert Thorsen, one of the
elder directors, at one of the meetings at which Kaffrath was present
and offering his usual protest. "I don't see anything the matter with
'em. I ride in em."

Thorsen was a heavy, dusty, tobacco-bestrewn individual of sixty-six,
who was a little dull but genial. He was in the paint business, and
always wore a very light steel-gray suit much crinkled in the seat and
arms.

"Perhaps that's what's the matter with them, Albert," chirped up Solon
Kaempfaert, one of his cronies on the board.

The sally drew a laugh.

"Oh, I don't know. I see the rest of you on board often enough."

"Why, I tell you what's the matter with them," replied Kaffrath.
"They're dirty, and they're flimsy, and the windows rattle so you can't
hear yourself think. The track is no good, and the filthy straw we
keep in them in winter is enough to make a person sick. We don't keep
the track in good repair. I don't wonder people complain. I'd
complain myself."

"Oh, I don't think things are as bad as all that," put in Onias C.
Skinner, the president, who had a face which with its very short
side-whiskers was as bland as a Chinese god. He was sixty-eight years
of age. "They're not the best cars in the world, but they're good
cars. They need painting and varnishing pretty badly, some of them,
but outside of that there's many a good year's wear in them yet. I'd
be very glad if we could put in new rolling-stock, but the item of
expense will be considerable. It's these extensions that we have to
keep building and the long hauls for five cents which eat up the
profits." The so-called "long hauls" were only two or three miles at
the outside, but they seemed long to Mr. Skinner.

"Well, look at the South Side," persisted Kaffrath. "I don't know what
you people are thinking of. Here's a cable system introduced in
Philadelphia. There's another in San Francisco. Some one has invented
a car, as I understand it, that's going to run by electricity, and here
we are running cars--barns, I call them--with straw in them. Good
Lord, I should think it was about time that some of us took a tumble to
ourselv