Four o'clock
I had noticed a peculiar Aeolian harp-like cry that ran through the whole train as we settled to rest at last after a long run -- an almost sigh of infinite relief , a musical sigh that began in C and ran gradually up to F natural , which I think most observant travelers have noticed day and night . No railway official has ever given me a satisfactory explanation of it . As the car , in a rapid run , is always slightly projected forward of its trucks , a practical friend once suggested to me that it was the gradual settling back of the car body to a state of inertia , which , of course , every poetical traveler would reject . Four o'clock the sound of boot-blacking by the porter faintly apparent from the toilet-room . Why not talk to him ? But , fortunately , I remembered that any attempt at extended conversation with conductor or porter was always resented by them as implied disloyalty to the company they represented . I recalled that once I had endeavored to impress upon a conductor the absolute folly of a midnight inspection of tickets , and had been treated by him as an escaped lunatic .