Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/265

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
BROAD STREET STATION
247

always leads the crowd. The men from the smoker are first, puffing pipes or cigars. They all seem to know exactly where they want to go and push on relentlessly. After the main body of travelers come the Pullman passengers, usually followed by porters. Here is a girl in a very neat blue suit. Her porter carries an enormous black hat-box painted with very swagger stripes of green. She is pretty, in a rather frank way, but too dusty with powder. An actress, one supposes. A tall young man steps out from the crowd, something very rakish about him, too. She looks surprised. "Nice of me to meet you, wasn't it?" he says. They walk off together, and one notices the really admirable hang of her blue skirt, just reaching her fawn spats. Sorry she uses so much powder. Curious thing; the same young chap was back again an hour later, this time to meet a man on the next New York train. They both wore brightly burnished brown shoes and seemed to have completely mastered life's perplexities. All these little dramas were enacted to a merry undertone of constant sound: the clear chime of bells, the murmur and throb of hissing steam, the rumble of baggage trucks, the slither of thousands of feet.

There is not much kissing done when people arrive from New York, but if you will linger about the gate when the Limited gets in from Chicago you will see that humanity pays more affectionate tribute to friends arriving from that strange country. There was one odd little group of three. A