No, sir; it's a world I can't see through, nor begin to."
"I never thought of it that way," said Lemuel, darkened by this
black pessimism of the conductor. He had not, practically, found the
world so unjust as the conductor implied, but he could not
controvert his argument. He only said, "May be the right thing makes
us feel good in some way we don't know of."
"Well, I don't want to feel good in some way I don't know of,
myself," said the conductor very scornfully.
"No, that's so," Lemuel admitted. He remained silent, with a vague
wonder flitting through his mind whether Mr. Sewell could make
anything better of the case, and then settled back to his thoughts
of Statira, pierced and confused as they were now with his pain from
that trouble with Miss Vane.
"What was that you asked me just now?" said the conductor.
"That I asked you?" Lemuel echoed. "Oh yes! I asked you how you got
your place on the cars."
"Well, sir, you have to have recommendations--they won't touch you
without 'em; and then you have to have about seventy-five dollars
capital to start with. You got to get your coat, and your cap, and
your badge, and you got to have about twenty dollars of your own to
make change with, first off; company don't start you with a cent."
Lemuel made no reply. After a while he asked, "Do you know any good
hotel, around here, where I could go for the night?"
"Well, there's the Brunswick, and there's the Van-dome," said the
conductor.
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