railroads and industrial corporations, who recognize it as a chargeable
item in the expense accounts of their men on the road.

A man with a fat run--lower berths all occupied, with at least a
smattering of riders in the uppers, night after night--ought to be able
easily to put aside a hundred and fifty dollars a month as his income
from this item. There are hundreds of porters who are doing this very
thing; and there are at least dozens of porters who own real estate,
automobiles, and other such material evidences of prosperity.

A tip is not necessarily a humiliation, either to the giver or to the
taker. On the contrary, it is a token of meritorious service. And the
smart porter is going to take good care that he gives such service. But
how about the porter who is not so smart--the man who has the lean run?
As every butcher and every transportation man knows, there is lean with
the fat. And it does the lean man little good to know that his fat
brother is preparing to buy a secondhand automobile. On the contrary, it
creates an anarchist--or at least a socialist--down under that black
skin.

Here is Lemuel--cursed with a lean run and yet trying to maintain at
least an appearance of geniality. Lemuel runs on a "differential"
between New York, Chicago and St. Louis. Every passenger-traffic man
knows that most of the differentials--as the roads that take longer
hours, and so are permitted to charge a slightly lower through fare
between those cities, are called--have had a hard time of it in recent
years. It is the excess-fare trains, the highest-priced carriers--which
charge you a premium of a dollar for every hour they save in placing you
in the terminal--that are the crowded trains. And the differentials have
had increasing difficulty getting through passengers.