millions of dollars. The march of
progress apparently finds the suburban resident always a little in
advance.

Harrington met me at the station and asked me if that was not a very
good train I had come down on. The suburban virus was in me. I lied and
said yes. As we sat at our luncheon I felt how peculiarly a vital factor
in out-of-town existence the railroad constitutes. Both Harrington and
his wife spoke of trains as of living, breathing people. Some trains,
with all their faults, the Harringtons evidently loved. Others they
detested, and made no attempt to conceal the fact. I had just finished
telling Mrs. Harrington about the latest woman's suffrage parade when
Harrington said: "Do you know, my dear, the 8.13 is getting worse all
the time." I was still thinking of my own story, and I failed to catch
just who or what it was that was getting worse all the time to an extent
so inimical to Harrington's peace of mind. But Mrs. Harrington looked
up, frowning slightly, and said: "Can't anything be done?" Harrington
shook his head. "It's hopeless." By this time I was convinced that it
must be some family skeleton that Harrington had rather oddly chosen to
bring out before a stranger; some scapegrace cousin, I suspected, who
probably got drunk and came to Harrington's office and demanded money. I
looked discreetly into my plate as Mrs. Harrington suggested: "You might
write to the superintendent." "We have," replied Harrington, "and he
threatened to take it off altogether. Not that it would mean any loss. I
can make just as good time now by the 8:35."

After luncheon we walked. I have never found the walking in the suburbs
very good. There is a regrettable lack of elbow-room. A short stroll
brings one either to a railway-siding, which is bad enough, or to a
promising growth of trees, which is worse. From the road these trees
look like the beginning of a primeval jungle sweeping on to far
horizons. Plunge into that timber growth and in five minutes you emerge
on a sewered road with concrete sidewalks and ornamental lamp posts and
a crew of Italian labourers drinking beer in the shadow of a
steam-roller. It is a gash of civilisation across the face of the
wilderness, and, like most deformities, it is displeasing to the eye.
Walking under such conditions is not stimulative. I miss the sense of
space and freedom I get in the streets of New York, where I know that I
can walk twenty miles north or twenty miles east without inter