A company steel-plant! A _corporation_
steel-plant! A TRUST steel-plant.
Yet never so much as a starving cat or a pile of garbage in the
foreground!
CHAPTER XL
THE ROAD TO ARCADY
Before we saw the train which was to take us from Birmingham to
Columbus, Mississippi, we began to sense its quality. When we attempted
to purchase parlor car seats of the ticket agent at the Union Station
and were informed by him that our train carried no parlor car, it seemed
to us that his manner was touched with cynicism, and this impression was
confirmed by his reply to our further timid inquiry as to a dining car:
"Where do you gentlemen reckon you're a-goin' to, anyhow?"
Presently we passed through the gate and better understood the nature of
the ticket agent's thoughts. The train consisted of several untidy day
coaches, the first a Jim Crow car, the others for white people. The
negro car was already so full that many of its occupants had to stand in
the aisle, but this did not seem to trouble them, for all were gabbling
happily, and the impression one got, in glancing through the door, was
of many sets of handsome white teeth displayed in as many dark grinning
faces. There are innumerable things for which we cannot envy the negro,
but neither his teeth nor his good nature are among them.
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