My companions scratched along, doing fairly well, too; but I led the field--I was so much roomier than any one of them was.
But here aboard this Pullman on this, the dedicatory day of my self-imposed martyrdom, I could not lose myself as I had on that former historic occasion in the ardor of chasing the small game of the country.
By four o'clock in the afternoon I could appreciate the sensations of a conch shell on a parlor whatnot.

I had a feeling that if anyone were to press his ear up against me he would hear a murmuring sound as of distant sea waves.

Yet, mark you, I held bravely out, fighting still the good fight.

This, then, was my dinner, if such it might in truth be called: Clear soup, a smallish slice of rare roast beef cut shaving thin, gluten bread sparsely buttered, a cloud of watercress no larger than a man's hand, another raw apple and a bit of domestic cheese--nothing rich, nothing exotic, no melting French _fromages_, no creamy Danish pastries.
Only when I reached my demi-tasse, which I took straight, did I permit myself a touch of luxury.

I lit my cigar with a genuine imported Swedish parlor match.
Followed then the first comforting manifestation, the first gratefully registered taste of recompense for my privations.