Seeing me off for the most
practical of reasons, such gentlemen are invariably efficient. They
provide an equipage, and there have even been times when, in the final
hurried moments, they have helped me to jam the last things into my
trunks and bags. One of them politely takes my suitcase, another kindly
checks my baggage, and all in order that a third, who is usually the
secretary of the chamber of commerce, may regale me with inspiring
statistics concerning the population of "our city," the seating capacity
of the auditorium, the number of banks, the amount of their clearings,
and the quantity of belt buckles annually manufactured. When the train
is ready we exchange polite expressions of regret at parting:
expressions reminiscent of those little speeches which the King of
England and the Emperor of Germany used to make at parting in the old
days before they found each other out and began dropping high explosives
on each other's roofs.
Such a committee, feeling no emotion (except perhaps relief) at seeing
me depart, may be useful. Not so with friends and loved ones. Useful as
they may be in the great crises of life, they are but disturbing
elements in the small ones. Those who would die for us seldom check our
trunks.
By this I do not mean to imply that either of the two delightful
creatures who came to the Pennsylvania Terminal to bid me good-by would
die for me.
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