San Francisco with that kind of a valise.” A few in the car laughed, but at that time I didn’t see the joke. Finally one of the drummers said if I’d open and they got a look inside of it, he could tell if it was a real one. He said if the colors came clear through the cloth, it’s real; if they don’t, it’s just an imitation. So I opened it and he put his head inside of it. He said: “Yes, it is a real one; they come all the way through.”
I had never slept on a train, so, after I watched them take down a few berths, I went to bed just for the novelty of it, taking upper eight. In the middle of the night, a drummer who had got on the train after I had gone to bed, and was going to get off before I would be up in the morning, said that he would like to see that valise, if it was not too much trouble. So I dug it from under my pillow and showed it to him with the greatest of pride. I remember the drummer said he was sorry he wasn’t going to San Francisco with me, but he said he wouldn’t be there until the next week. I told him I guessed I’d remember him and should like to see him.
The next day across the mountains there
