""We are going a bit smoother, I see."
""Yes," he said, "we"re off the track now.""
Three men were talking in rather a large way as to the excellent train service each had in his special locality: one was from the west, one from New England, and the other from New York. The former two had told of marvelous doings of trains, and it is distinctly "up" to the man from New York.
"Now in New York," he said, "we not only run our trains fast, but we also start them fast. I remember the case of a friend of mine whose wife went to see him off for the west on the Pennsylvania at Jersey City. As the train was about to start my friend said his final good-by to his wife, and leaned down from the car platform to kiss her. The train started, and, would you believe it, my friend found himself kissing a strange woman on the platform at Trenton!"
And the other men gave it up.
"Say, young man," asked an old lady at the ticket-office, "what time does the next train pull in here and how long does it stay?"
"From two to two to two-two," was the curt reply.
"Well, I declare! Be you the whistle?"
An express on the Long Island Railroad was tearing away at a wild and awe-inspiring rate of six miles an hour, when all of a sudden it stopped altogether. Most of the pa.s.sengers did not notice the difference; but one of them happened to be somewhat anxious to reach his destination before old age claimed him for its own. He put his head through the window to find that the cause of the stop was a cow on the track. After a while they continued the journey for half an hour or so, and then--another stop.
"What"s wrong now?" asked the impatient pa.s.senger of the conductor.
"A cow on the track."
"But I thought you drove it off."
"So we did," said the conductor, "but we caught up with it again."
The president of one great southern railway pulled into a southern city in his private car. It was also the terminal of a competing road, and the private car of the president of the other line was on a side track.
There was great rivalry between these two lines, which extended from the president of each down to the most humble employe. In the evening the colored cook from one of the cars wandered over to pa.s.s the time of day with the cook on the other car.
One of these roads had recently had an appalling list of accidents, and the death-toll was exceptionally high. The cook from this road sauntered up to the back platform of the private car, and after an interchange of courtesies said:
"Well, how am youh ole jerkwatah railroad these days? Am you habbing prosper"s times?"
"Man," said the other, "we-all am so prosperous that if we was any moah prosperous we just naturally couldn"t stand hit."
"Hough!" said the other, "we-all am moah prosperous than you-all."
"Man," said the other, "we dun carry moah"n a million pa.s.sengers last month."
"Foah de Lord"s sake!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the first negro. "You-all carried moah"n a million pa.s.sengers? Go on with you, n.i.g.g.e.r; we dun kill moah pa.s.sengers than you carry."
It was on a little branch railway in a southern state that the New England woman ventured to refer to the high rates.
"It seems to me five cents a mile is extortion," she said, with frankness, to her southern cousin.
"It"s a big lot of money to pay if you think of it by the mile," said the southerner, in her soft drawl; "but you just think how cheap it is by the hour, Cousin Annie--only about thirty-five cents."--_Youth"s Companion_.
RAPID TRANSIT
One cold, wintry morning a man of tall and angular build was walking down a steep hill at a quick pace. A treacherous piece of ice under the snow caused him to lose control of his feet; he began to slide and was unable to stop.
At a cross-street half-way down the decline he encountered a large, heavy woman, with her arms full of bundles. The meeting was sudden, and before either realized it a collision ensued and both were sliding down hill, a grand ensemble--the thin man underneath, the fat woman and bundles on top. When the bottom was reached and the woman was trying in vain to recover her breath and her feet, these faint words were borne to her ear:
"Pardon me, madam, but you will have to get off here. This is as far as I go."
READING
_See_ Books and Reading.
REAL ESTATE AGENTS
Little Nelly told little Anita what she termed a "little fib."
ANITA--"A fib is the same as a story, and a story is the same as a lie."
NELLY--"No, it is not."
ANITA--"Yes, it is, because my father said so, and my father is a professor at the university."
NELLY--"I don"t care if he is. My father is a real estate man, and he knows more about lying than your father does."
REALISM
The storekeeper at Yount, Idaho, tells the following tale of Ole Olson, who later became the little town"s mayor.
"One night, just before closin" up time, Ole, hatless, coatless, and breathless, come rushin" into the store, an" droppin" on his knees yelled, "Yon, Yon, hide me, hide me! Ye sheriff"s after me!"
""I"ve no place to hide you here, Ole," said I.