"
It may have been, for aught I know, the change from a
wet to a dry atmosphere. I am told that, biologically,
such things profoundly affect the human system.
At any rate I found it impossible that night--I was on
the train from Montreal to Toronto--to fall asleep.
A peculiar wakefulness seemed to have seized upon me,
which appeared, moreover, to afflict the other passengers
as well. In the darkness of the car I could distinctly
hear them groaning at intervals.
"Are they ill?" I asked, through the curtains, of the
porter as he passed.
"No, sir," he said, "they're not ill. Those is the Toronto
passengers."
"All in this car?" I asked.
"All except that gen'lman you may have heard singing in
the smoking compartment. He's booked through to Chicago."
But, as is usual in such cases, sleep came at last with
unusual heaviness. I seemed obliterated from the world
till, all of a sudden, I found myself, as it were, up
and dressed and seated in the observation car at the back
of the train, awaiting my arrival.
"Is this Toronto?" I asked of the Pullman conductor, as
I peered through the window of the car.
The conductor rubbed the pane with his finger and looked
out.
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