Officials become brutalized, I suppose, as a matter of course. One
cannot expect an office-clerk to embrace tenderly every stranger who
comes in with a carpet-bag, or a telegraph-operator to burst into tears
over every unpleasant message he receives for transmission. Still,
humanity is not always totally extinguished in these persons. I
discovered a youth in the telegraph-office of the Continental Hotel, in
Philadelphia, who was as pleasant in conversation, and as graciously
responsive to inoffensive questions, as if I had been his childless
opulent uncle, and my will not made.
On the road again the next morning, over the ferry, into the cars with
sliding panels and fixed windows, so that in summer the whole side of
the car may be made transparent. New Jersey is, to the apprehension of a
traveller, a double-headed suburb rather than a State. Its dull red dust
looks like the dried and powdered mud of a battle-field. Peach-trees are
common, and champagne-orchards. Canal-boats, drawn by mules, swim by,
feeling their way along like blind men led by dogs.
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