Skiddoo!
by Hugh McHugh.
To the five hundred and seventy-five thousands friends who have made this series of John Henry books a success beyond all dreaming, my deepest grat.i.tude.
To the Good Fellows of the Press who have looked upon John Henry with the Eye of Understanding, and who, realizing that these books were never intended to be more than an humble form of entertainment, have written thereof with the Pen of Patience, I say thank you, with all my heart.
To the Busy Little Bunch of Newspaper Knockers who have so a.s.siduously plied hammer and harpoon since this series began, I want to say that 575,000 John Henry books were sold up to March 1st, 1906.
There is your answer, O Beloved of the Short Arm Jab!
Ponder thereon, ye Little Brothers of the Knock-Out Drops, Five Hundred and Seventy-five Thousand books sold (and mine is twelve per cent. of the gross) while you are STILL drawing your little $18 per and STILL singing second tenor in the Anvil Chorus.
Now O, sweet-scented Companions of the Crimp, and Brethren of the Double-Cross, ask your weazened little souls what"s the use?
Skiddoo for yours!
G. V. H.
SKIDDOO
CHAPTER I
JOHN HENRY ON UPPER BERTHS
I was down on the card to make a quick jump to Pittsburg a few nights ago, and I"m a lemon if I didn"t draw an upper berth in the sleeping car thing!
Say! I"ll be one of a party of six to go before Congress and tell all I know about an upper berth.
And I"d like to tell it right now while I"m good and hot around the collar.
The upper berth in a sleeping car is the same relation to comfort that a carpet tack is to a bare foot.
As a place to tie up a small bundle of sleep a boiler factory has it beat to a whimper.
Strong men weep every time the ticket agent says, "Nothing left but an upper," and lovely women have hysterics and begin to make faces at the general public when the colored porter points up in the air and says, "Madam, your eagle"s nest is ready far up the mountain side."
The sleeping car I b.u.t.ted into a few nights ago was crowded from the cellar to the attic and everybody present b.u.mped into everybody else, and when they weren"t b.u.mping into each other they were over in a corner somewhere biting their nails.
While the porter was cooking up my attack of insomnia I went out in the smoking-room to drown my sorrow, but I found such a bunch of sorrow killers out there ahead of me that I had to hold the comb and brush in my lap and sit up on the towel rack while I took a little smoke.
Did you ever notice on your travels that peculiar hog on the train who pays two dollars for a berth and always displaces eight dollars" worth of s.p.a.ce in the smoking car?
If he would bite the end of a piece of rope and light up occasionally it wouldn"t be so bad, but nix on the smoke for him.
He simply sits there with a face like a fish and keeps George Nicotine and all the real rag burners from enjoying a smoke.
If ever a statue is needed of the patriot b.u.t.tinski I would suggest a model in the person of the smokeless smoker who always travels in the smoking-car.
Two busy gazabes were discussing politics when I squeezed into the smoker on this particular occasion, and I judge they both had lower berths, otherwise their minds would have been busy with dark and personal fears of the future.
"Well," exclaimed the gabby one from Kansas City, "what _is_ politics?
Well, what is it?"
"Politics," replied Wise Willie from Providence, "politics is where we get it--sometimes in the bank, sometimes in the neck!"
Everybody present peeled the cover off a loud laugh and the smokeless hog at the window stole four inches extra s.p.a.ce so that he could shake more when he giggled.
"Well," resumed the inquisitive person from Kansas City, "what is a politician? Do you know? Eh, well, what is a politician?"
"A politician," replied the fat man from Providence, "a politician is the reason we have so much politics."
Much applause left the hands of those present, and the smokeless hog turned sideways so that he could make the others more uncomfortable.
"Perhaps," insinuated gabby Jim from Kansas City, "perhaps you know what a statesman is, eh?"
"A statesman is a politician in good luck," was the come-back from our fat friend from Providence, and in the enthusiasm which followed the smokeless hog found out there was no buffet car on the train, so he offered to buy the drinks.
"Don"t you believe that all men are born equal?" inquired the Kansas Cityite.
"Yes, but some of them have pull enough to get over it," responded the Providence philosopher, whereupon the smokeless hog by the window took out a flask and began to dampen his conscience.
Just then the towel rack fell with a crash, and after I picked up the comb and the brush and myself I decided to retire to my bracket on the wall and try to sleep.
When I left the smoker the smokeless hog was occupying two and a half seats and was now busy breathing in some second-hand cigarette smoke which n.o.body seemed to care for.
"How do I reach my Alpine bungalow?" I said to the porter, whereupon he laughed teethfully and hit me on the shins with a step-ladder.
The spectacular gent who occupied the star chamber beneath my garret was sleeping as noisily as possible, and when I started up the step-ladder he began to render Mendelssohn"s obligato for the trombone in the key of G.
Above the roar of the train from away off in lower No. 2 faintly I could hear an answering bugle call.
I climbed up prepared for the worst and in the twinkling of an eye the porter removed the stepladder and there I was, sitting on the perilous edge of my pantry shelf with nothing to comfort me save the exhaust of a professional snorer.
After about five minutes devoted to a parade of all my sins I began to try to extract my personality from my coat, but when I pushed my arm up in the air to get the sleeve loose my knuckles struck the hard-wood finish and I fell backward on the cast-iron pillow, breathing hoa.r.s.ely like a busy jack rabbit.
I waited about ten minutes while my brain was bobbing back and forth with the excitement of running fifty miles an hour over a careless part of the country, and then I cautiously tried to approach my shoe laces.
Say! if you"re a man and you weigh in the neighborhood of 225 pounds, most of which is in the region of the equator, you will appreciate what it means to lie on your back in an upper berth and try to get your shoes off.
And this goes double for the man who weighs more than 225 pounds.
Every time I reached for my feet to get my shoes off I b.u.mped my head off, and the more I b.u.mped my head off the less I got my shoes off, and the less I got my shoes off the more I seemed to b.u.mp my head off, so I decided that in order to keep my head on I had better keep my shoes on also.