Besides being thus garrulous and open, he was the most helpful man I
ever met, acting as a nurse to the three or four restless children in
the car, and even producing from his bag a pair of scissors and a bottle
of gum with which to make dolls' paper clothes. Never in my life have I
called a stranger "Ed" on such short acquaintance; never have I been
called "Poppa" so often by the peevish progeny of others.
It was on this train that I began to realise how much thirstier the
Americans are than we. The passengers were continually filling and
emptying the little cups that are stacked beside the fountains in the
corridors, and long before we reached Chicago the cups had all been
used. In England only children drink water at odd times and they not to
excess. But in America every one drinks water, and the water is there
for drinking, pure and cold and plentiful. It is beside the bed, in the
corners of offices, awaiting you at meals, jingling down the passages of
hotels, bubbling in the streets. In English restaurants, water bottles
are rarely supplied until asked for; in our hotel bedrooms they seldom
bear lifting to the light. As to whether the general health of the
Americans is superior or inferior to ours by reason of this water-
drinking custom, I have no information; but figures would be
interesting.
CHICAGO
In Chicago the weather was wet and cold, and it was not until after I
had left that I learned of the presence there of certain literary
collections which I may now perhaps never see.
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