Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1887 — BEATING A RAILROAD. [ARTICLE]

BEATING A RAILROAD.

BY M. QUAD.

Down in New York State there is a railroad called the Home, Watertown and Some Other Place Railroad. I believe the other place is Ogdensburg. Last summer occasion required that I should use this road for about sixty miles, and I left Rome one morning feeling at peace with all mankind. The conductor t ame along in due time to take up the tickets, and I made it a point to ask him if we were ou time. I didn't care a copper whether we were two hours ahead or two hours behind time, but I wanted to exhibit a friendly spirit and let him know that I was interested in his welfare. A passenger who won’t show his hand to a conductor ought to be made to ride in the baggage car. He uttered a grunt in reply to my question and passed on. If ho was too overworked and heartbroken to utter a yes or no that was not my fault. He put a green ticket in the band of my hat to show that I was a cash passenger, and I went to sleep to dream that a mad populace were about to hang Jay Gould because he didn’t pay his railroad conductors a salary of $5,000 a year. “Ticket!” yelled a voice in my ear, and I awoke to find the broken-hearted conductor towering above me. “What do you want?” “Your ticket!” “Gave it to you an hour ago.” “Where’s your check?” “In mv hat.”

“See here, young man,” growled the broken-hearted conductor, “I want your check or your fare!” The check was not in my hat. It was not in any of my fourteen pockets. It was not on the seat or the floor, nor above nor beneath the earth. It took ten minutes to satisfy the overworked conductor of this fact. “But I had it,” I persisted. “I doubt it. ” “Don’t you remember of my asking you, when you took my ticket, if we were on time?” “No, sir! If I had ever been asked such a question as that I should have surely remembered it.” “This man here must have seen my ticket, for I saw him looking into my wallet.” “You are a liar!” promptly responded the passenger, who had the seat behind me. “And you must either pay your fare or get off,” added the conductor. “Look here, old fellow, I bought my ticket in the regular way, handed it over according to rule, and the fact that I have kept my seat for sixty miles is evidence that you received the ticket. Don’t make a side-show of yourself about the check, which is but a bit of card-board, anyhow. I have always sympathized with conductors as a poor but strictly honest lot of men. I feel that you are overworked and overburdened, and that you are many times the object of unjust suspicions. When I make my will I shall remember at least twentyfWe conductors to the extent of ” “I want that check!” “I haven’t got it. ” “Then I want your fare!” “I have paid it once. ” He readied up and seized the bellrope and demanded; “Will you pay?” “Not to-day.” He pulled the cord, and the train came to a stand-still in about a quarter of a mile. “Now, then, off with you!” “You’ll have to put me off. I’ve paid my fare, and if I go off I want a show for a suit for damages.” He beckoned for the brakeman. I have always sympathized with the brakemen as a class, believing them to be gentle-minded creatures who suffered and endured simply to keep trains running for tho convenience of the public. The brakeman came, and the pair helped me down the aisle and dropped me off among the daisies. I sat down on the grass, and as the train moved off the conductor remarked: “Next time you try this dodge on me you’ll get badly thumped!” I sat there for twenty minutes, and then the rear end of the train as it backed up came into view. It stopped opposite me, and the conductor came down and said: “My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons ! We found your check under the seat, and have come back for you!” “Then I had a check ?” “You did!” “And I am not a dead-beat ?” “I’ll shoot the man who says you are!” “But you put me off, and I waDt damages from the company!” “Say, don’t do it! You’ll ruin me! I’ve got two children sick with scarlet fever, a wife who is bed-ridden, a mother who needs my support, a father ” I got aboard and the train went on. The man who had called me a liar begged my pardon, the brakeman wanted to adopt me for his own son, and a dozen passengers came to shake hands and say that my magnanimous spirit would surely be rewarded in heaven.—D troit Free Press. Recently a farmer with a stick in his hand was chasing a cat across the back-yard, and never noticed the pumphandle sticking straight out in front of him until wrapped round it. Then it was too late to do any good, and by the time he had gathered strength enough to fall to the ground the cat was only a mile and a half this side of the north star. ■ Thebe is nothing so easy as to be wise for others; a species of prodigality, by the way —for such wisdom is wholly wasted.