Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1896 — Trying to Top the Clowd. [ARTICLE]

Trying to Top the Clowd.

ll e entered the car on which I was seated on the Sixth avenue elevated, and after a bit he leaned over and whispered in my ear; “I’ll be hanged if they liawen’t dona it!” “Done what?” I asked. “Got my watch!” “Who?” “Dunno. Some feller picket It out o’ my pocket!” “Well, that’s too bad. You ought to have been more careful. Are you a stranger in the city?” “Yes, perfect stranger. Got here only two hours ago. Say, it’s immense, ain’t It?” “I don’t exactly understand.” “Don’t you? Wall, I dt>. Do you know what’ll happen when I git back home?” “The folks will laugh at you for loslug your watch.” "Will they? Not as I knows of. You jest let m e git down alongside the stove In White’s grocery and tell the crowd that some feller down here in New York picked that watch off’n me and I never felt a touch and I’ll be the biggest man in town fur the next two weeks!” “And if you lost your wallet yau’d be a bigger man yit?” “You bet I would! Here she is, stickin’ right outer my pocket, and there’s nine dollars In her, and if somebody’ll sneak her out and not let me feel ’em I kin go home and knock the socks off’n the feller who was clubbed by a policeman and run over by a cable car down here!”—Detroit Free Press.