Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1882 — He Knew His Failings. [ARTICLE]

He Knew His Failings.

I used to often wonder whether the proprietor of a railroad eating-house of the third-class order ever racked his brain to imagine what a man thought after having chewed away at a piece of bull-beef, broken a tooth on a sandwich, and disgiis'e 1 his stomach with a cup of slop, at being told that the charge was 75 cents. The wonder ceased last spring while making a trip through Virginia. The table was covered with flies, the meat and coffee cold, and the butter was frowy and the milk sour. Not one of us ate six mouthfuls. I was the first to pass out, and as I approached the cashier, he said: “Bad dinner —mighty bad.” “Yes.” “Toughest beef and sloppiest coffee you ever saw?” “Just so?” “Flies thick enough to disgust a rhinoceros?” “Exactly.” “And a perfect imposition on the pub’ lie to charge 75 cents?” “You bet it is!” “You’ll take care to warn your friends not to stop here ?” “If I don’t may I be shot!” “All of which,” cooly continued the man, “is repeated over and over every day in the year, and with all of which I perfectly agree. Seventy-five cents, please.” “For dinner?” “No, sir—for taking up my valuable time and to help pay my rent to the railroad company.” Those who came after me called his place a “hole,” and called him a “slouch,” and his table a hog-trough, and he agreed with each one and collected 75 cents just as easy as rolling off a log.— M. Quad. An Arkansaw man secured a free pass over a railroad. He was very much pleased at first, but, after discovering that if injured in an accident he could not recover damages, he approached the Superintendent and said: “Look here, how about this thing?” “What’s the matter with it?” “What if I get killed on the road; my wife wouldn’t recover damages.” “No, sir.” “Then I don’t want the pass. I ain’t got no wife nor no relations, but I want to feel that if I had a wife she’d get pay for my death. I’m much obliged to yer, but recken I’ll have to walk. ” — Arkansaw Traveler. That architectural impertinence, the bay window that overhangs the sidewalk, has been judiciously condemned in Philadelphia, as “an unjustifiable encroachment O| the public highway, prejudicial to tlie interests of the community and the rights of property owners in the city-”