the railway station,
which presents a diversified and entertaining scene to the incoming
visitor. Porters (out of a box of porters) career here and there with
the trucks and light baggage. Quite a number of our all-too-rare
civilians parade the platform: two gentlemen, a lady, and a small but
evil-looking child are particularly noticeable; and there is a wooden
sailor with jointed legs, in a state of intoxication as reprehensible
as it is nowadays happily rare. Two virtuous dogs regard his abandon
with quiet scorn. The seat on which he sprawls is a broken piece of
some toy whose nature I have long forgotten, the station clock is a
similar fragment, and so is the metallic pillar which bears the name of
the station. So many toys, we find, only become serviceable with a
little smashing. There is an allegory in this--as Hawthorne used to
write in his diary.

("What is he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river?")

The fences at the ends of the platforms are pieces of wood belonging to
the game of Matador--that splendid and very educational construction
game, hailing, I believe, from Hungary. There is also, I regret to say,
a blatant advertisement of Jab's "Hair Color," showing the hair. (In
the photograph the hair does not come out very plainly.) This is by G.
P. W., who seems marked out by destiny to be the advertisement-writer
of the next generation. He spends much of his scanty leisure inventing
and drawing advertisements of imaginary commodities. Oblivious to many
happy, beautiful, and noble things in life, he goes about studying and
imitating the literature of the billboards. He and his brother write
newspapers almost entirely devoted to these annoying appeals. You will
note, too, the placard at the mouth of the railway tunnel urging the
existence of Jinks' Soap upon the passing traveller. The oblong object
on the placard represents, no doubt, a cake of this offensive and
aggressive commodity. The zoological garden flaunts a placard, "Zoo,
two cents pay," and the grocer's picture of a cabbage with "Get Them"
is not to be ignored. F. R. W. is more like the London County Council
in this respect, and prefers bare walls.

"Returning from the station," as the guide-books say, and "giving one
more glance" at the passengers who are waiting for the privilege of
going round the circle in open cars and returning in a prostrated
condition to the station again, and "observing" what admirable
platforms are mad