"Is this one of them?" he would cry, and Italy would
give assent. "Right!" And the children were agglomerated and piled
in a heap in the middle of the car until such time as a thinning of
the crowd permitted the anxious and blushing sire to reassemble them
and reprove their truancy with Adriatic lightnings from his dark
glowing eyes.
How pleasing is our commuter's simplicity! A cage of white mice, or
a crated goat (such are to be seen now and then on the Jamaica
platform) will engage his eye and give him keen amusement. Then
there is that game always known (in the smoking car) as
"pea-knuckle." The sight of four men playing will afford
contemplative and apparently intense satisfaction to all near. They
will lean diligently over seat-backs to watch every play of the
cards. They will stand in the aisle to follow the game, with
apparent comprehension. Then there are distinguished figures that
move through the observant commuter's peep-show. There is the tall
young man with the beaky nose, which (as Herrick said)
Is the grace
And proscenium of his face.
He is one of several light-hearted and carefree gentry who always
sit together and are full of superb cheer. Those who travel
sometimes with twinges of perplexity or skepticism are healed when
they see the magnificent assurance of this creature. Every day we
hear him making dates for his cronies to meet him at lunch time,
and in the evening we see him towering above the throng at the gate.
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