shone like a beacon ahead of me, for it was now dark.

Suddenly we came upon a signboard. We went up to it, struck a match, and
read breathlessly--"GOODALE."

We looked about us. Goodale was a switch and a box car.

Nothing beside remains,

I quoted,

'round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Alas for the trim little lady with the white teeth and the smile and the
beefsteak!

We said bitter things there in that waste about the man with the
information. We loaded his memory with anathemas. One cannot eat a
signboard, even with so inviting a name upon it. An idea struck me--it
seemed a very brilliant one at the moment. I sat down and delivered
myself of it to my companions, who also had lusted after the flesh-pots.
"We have wronged that man with the information," said I. "He was no
ordinary individual; he was a prophet: he simply got his dates mixed. In
precisely one hundred years from now, there will be a town on this
spot--and a restaurant! Shall we wait?"

They cursed me bitterly. I suspect neither of them is a philosopher.
Thereat I proceeded to eat a thick juicy steak from the T-bone portion