Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 August 1899 — Versified Excuses. [ARTICLE]

Versified Excuses.

“Bill Blue of Number Two,” the engineer who made a rhymed report of an accident, reminds a correspondent of a freight conductor who dropped into poetry when his own train was in trouble. “Number Eight” is the fastest eastbound train on one of the great trunk lines. Nothing is more annoying to the authorities of the road than to have this train delayed, even for five minutes, by inferior trains. But it happened that it was once detained for fifteen minutes at Friendship, New York—a little town on the Allegheny division—by a west-bound freight Tho delay was of course reported by the conductor of Number Eight to the superintendent at Hornellsville, and the superintendent immediately telegraphed the guilty freight conductor, asking why the “flyer” had been detained. The freight conductor, a wag with a turn for rhyme, sent back the following reply: The wind was high; the steam was low; The train was heavy and hard to tow; The coal was poor, ’twas mostly slate— Hence the detention of “Number Eight.” But the conductor’s “poem” did not sftve him from doing penance—ten days off duty, without pay.—Youth’s Companion.