Part 34 (1/2)

Suddenly the Pullman Coo it caht in its way, but that it was not a fundaan to throw out the grilles and the other knickknacks, even before it had committed itself definitely to the use of the steel car

Recently it has done much s, and all the hangings save those that are absolutely necessary to the operation of the car It has studied and it has experi car of to-day what is probably the n cousins scoff at it and call it immodest; but we may reserve our own opinion as to the relative modesty of some of their institutions

This, however, is not the story of the Pullman car It is the story of that ebony autocrat who presides so genially and yet so fire the porter--the six thousand Georges standing to-night to greet you and the other traveling folk at the doors of the waiting cars And George is worthy of a passing thought He was born in the day when the negro servant was the pride of A rooreatest of our hotels; when a colored butler was the joy of the finest of the ho Fifth Avenue or round Rittenhouse Square Transplanted, he quickly became an American institution And there is many a man who avers that never elsewhere has there been such a servant as a good negro servant

Fashi+ons change, and in the transplanting of other social ideas the black man has been shoved aside It is only in the Pulle That coht al questions of the wages and tips of the sleeping-car porters that have recently come to the fore Yet it is almost equally true that the black -car service Experi others One or two of the Canadian roads, which operate their own sleeping cars, have placed white men as porters; down in the Southwest the inevitable Mexicano has been placed in the familiar blue uniform

None of thero who is capable of taking charge of a sleeping car

The Pullman Company passes by the West Indians--the type so familiar to every man who has ridden many times in the elevators of the apartment houses of upper New York It prefers to recruit its porters froia and the Carolinas It almost limits its choice to certain counties within those states It shows a decided preference for the sons of its eht al up down there in the cotton country who have co made Pullman car porters The company that operates those cars prefers to discriminate--and it does discriminate

That is its first step toward service--the careful selection of the hu of that factor; and as soon as a young oes to school--in soe railroad centers that act as hubs for that system Sometimes the school is held in one of the division offices, butcar, sidetracked for the purpose

Its curriculum is unusual but it is valuable One moment it considers the best methods to ”swat the fly”--to drive hier; the nextof the linen closet, the properaway clean linen and blankets, the correct way of stacking in the laundry bags the dirty and discarded bedding The porter is taught that a sheet once unfolded cannot be used again Though it may be really spotless, yet technically it is dirty; and it must make a round trip to the laundry before it can reenter the service

All these things are taught the sophomore porters by a wrinkled veteran of the service; and they are minutely prescribed in the voluminous rule book issued by the Pullman Company, which believes that the first foundation of service is discipline So the school and the rule book do not hesitate at details They teach the i down beds, and the proper s as the calling of a passenger, for instance Noise is tabooed, and so even a soft knocking on the top of the berth is forbidden The porterfroh in this schoolroooes forward out on the line Under the direction of one of the grizzled autocrats he first comes in contact with actual patrons--comes to know their personalities and their peculiarities Also, he co of that overused and abused word--service After all, here is the full measure of the job He is a servant He must realize that

And as a servant he must perfect himself He must rise to the countless opportunities that will coht he is on the run He must do better--he ene Roundtree, who has been running a s car on one of the limited trains between New York and Boston for two decades--save for that brief transcendent hour when Charles S Mellen saw hiland and appropriated Roundtree for a personal servant and porter of his private car Roundtree is a negro of the very finest type He is a nity--and receives it And Roundtree, as porter of the Pullman smoker on the Merchants' Limited, has learned to anticipate

He knows at least five hundred of the big bankers and business h he knows the Boston crowd best He knows the onquin Clubs--the h to pronounce Peabody ”Pebbuddy” And they know hi in at the New Haven ticket offices and deht?”

”It isn't just knowing the able to call them by their names,”

he will tell you if you can catch hiot to remember what they smoke and what they drink When Mr

Blank tells ar it's my job to remember what he smokes and to put it before him I don't ask him what he wants I anticipate”

And by anticipating Roundtree approaches a sort of _n_th degree of service and receives one of the ”fattest” of all the Pulle Sylvester is another man of the Roundtree type--only his run trends to the west from New York instead of to the east, which means that he has a somewhat different type of patron hich to deal

Sylvester is a porter on the Twentieth Century Limited; and, like Roundtree, he is a colored man of far more than ordinary force and character He had opportunity to show both on a winter night, when his train was stopped and a drunken ers on Sylvester's car--was taken from the train The fact that the man was a powerful politician, a man who raved the direst threats when arrested, made the porter's job the more difficult

The Pullood cause to ree--and consuood cause in many such episodes to be thankful for the cool-headedness of its black man in a blue uniform who stands in immediate control of its property

Sylvester prefers to forget that episode He likes to think of the nice part of the Century's runs--the passengers who are quiet, and kind, and thoughtful, and re They are a sort whom it is a pleasure for a porter to serve They are the people who make an excess-fare train a ”fat run” There are other fat runs, of course: the Overland, the Olyressional--and of General Henry Forrest, of the Congressional, more in a moment--fat trains that follow the route of the Century

It was on one of these, coht in February last, that a resourceful porter had full use for his store of tact; for there is, in the coun to stamp Sixth City on its shi+rts and its shoe tabs, a bank president who--to put the htly--is a particular traveler More than one black h in porter service, has had his vanity coe has come on his car

And the man himself was one of those who are marked up and down the Pull trans cars as to his whims and peculiarities

It ell that every brother in service in the Cleveland district should know the code When Mr X entered his drawing-room--he never rides elsewhere in the car--shades were to be drawn, a pillow beaten and ready by the , and s; but God help the poor porter who forgot theine the emotions of Whittlesey Warren, porter of the car Thanatopsis, bound east on Nuh the portals of that scarabic antique, the Union Depot at Cleveland, a redcap with his grips in the wake Warren recognized his ood care as to that He followed the banker down the aisle, tucked away the bags, pulled down the shades, fixed the pillow and placed the runted approval, lighted a big black cigar and went into the s attention to the other patrons of his car It was passing attention at the best; for after a tineedle pointed to DR And on the drawing-room Whittlesey Warren danced a constant attention