"I will never go to Chicago," said the Red Knight.
Alice looked up from her book. "What train won't you take?" she asked.
"The 3:30," said the Red Knight.
"And which would you rather not have, a lower berth or an upper one?"
said Alice.
"By all means a lower berth," said the Red Knight. "It makes no
difference to me, you know."
And so the next morning they sat at breakfast in the dining-car. Alice
divided her attention between the grapefruit and the landscape, but the
Red Knight was completely absorbed with his own thoughts.
"It makes one dizzy to see the country flash by," said Alice, half to
herself.
The gentleman in a bathing suit who sat at the next table eating olives
with a spoon turned around with a reassuring smile.
"I shouldn't worry if I were you," he said. "It keeps up all the way to
Chicago, you know."
"What keeps up?" said Alice.
"The country, of course," said the gentleman.
But at the word Chicago, the Red Knight looked up suddenly. "My dear
Alice, do you happen to remember the name of the President who was
nominated at Chicago in 1860?" he said.
"Let me see," said Alice, and she began to repeat to herself,
First Washington his country's pride,
Then sturdy Adams true and tried,
Then Jefferson----
"We shall be in Chicago before you get to Daniel Webster," said the
gentleman in the bathing suit. "It was Lincoln, of course."
"Lincoln is right," said the Red Knight. "And now _I_ am going to
Chicago."
"That's a very good sign," said the gentleman in the bathing suit.
"What is?" said the Red Knight, blushing with delight.
"That," said the other, pointing out of the window. "Can you read it?
'Use Walnut Oil and Save Your Hair.' It sounds very convincing."
But the Red Knight was once more lost in thought, and the gentleman in
the bathing suit turned to Alice.
"I am an upholsterer by trade, you know," he said, "but in the summer I
give lessons on the violin."
"What an odd combination!" said Alice. "Do you play well?"
"Oh I make more or less of a respectable living out of it," he said.
"It's more respectable than upholstering, but it's less of a living."
Here the Red Knight looked up again. "What are those famous words in
Lincoln's Second Inaugural, Alice? You know what I mean. 'With--
With----' How does it go?"
"_I_ know what you mean," said the gentleman in the bathing suit as he
rolled his menu-card into a tube and began shooting olive-pits through
it. "You mean, 'With Alice towards none, with hilarity for all--'"
"I think you are very stupid," said Alice, "and I wish you wouldn't
take liberties with other people's names."
The man in the bathing suit immediately broke into tears. "I was only
fooling," he sobbed. "But you can't fool all of the people all of the
time. Can you now?" he said, turning to the Red Knight.
"You don't have to," said the Red Knight, to himself. "A good many
Progressives expect to be elected to the United States Senate."