I was disappointed with travel on American trains: I did not care for the Pullman sleeping-car system. One requires to be an acrobat to undress crouching in a confined space on top of one's bed; while the upper berths, though better sprung and therefore more comfortable, have the added disadvantage that in order to get into or out of them one is dependent on the whim of some sleepy negro attendant.
Above all I found the failure to provide proper smoking compartments (in many of the trains) most inconvenient, It is extremely tiresome to have to interrupt one's reading whenever one feels inclined for a smoke, and have to migrate to the narrow washing-room at the end of the car, where the seats are most uncomfortable and where the passenger with the loudest voice holds the floor.
And for much the same reason I objected to the cinema-houses in most of which smoking is not permitted.
For a nation which prides itself so much on its time and labour-saving devices the shoe-shine system Struck me as a very old-fashioned method of getting one's foot-gear cleaned. It is an intolerable waste of time to have to sit in a chair in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.