Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1885 — The Boy Didn’t Tumble. [ARTICLE]

The Boy Didn’t Tumble.

A lawyer and an editor in a Northern" Ohio town (the former an enthusiastic student of geology), b®th have offices on the same floor. Some time ago a farmer took a lot of specimens to town for the lawyer to examine, and finding his office locked up he left them in the printing office. A ‘ few days afterward the lawyer ■went into the public opinion foundry, and accosted the printer’s apprentice with—“l say, Charley, didn’t Mr. Plowman leave some geological specimens here for me the other day ?” “No,” replied the boy; “I guess not. I haven’t seen no sech.” Every two or three days the lawyer would drop in with the same query and receive the same reply, until finally he settled down to the conclusion that the young man was trying to beat, him out of the specimens. This ran on for a couple of weeks, until he happened to meet the editor on the stairs one day, and immediately proceeded to discuss the question. “See here, Agate,” said he, “isn’t that boy of yours alktle crooked?” “No, sir, he’s all right,” responded the scribe. “Whatever put that notion into your head?” The lawyer then explained the cause of his suspicion, and the two went into the printing office together to see about it. “Look here, Charley,” said the editor, going up to the young man’s case; “what aid you do with that sack of dornicks somebody left here a week or so agb ?” . “Why, they’re over there in the closet behirid the roller-box.” ”All right. Trot ’em out.” After the lawyer had departed with his prize, the youth went up to his employer, and said: “Do you call them blamed things geological specimens, Mr. Agate?” “Why, certainly, Charley; that’s what they are.” “Well, by George, that gets me," said the boy, with a dazed sort of look. “I couldn’t make out what the old blister was drivin’ at. He’s been buzzin’ me about geological specimens for the last two weeks, and I couldn’t make out what the blazes he was givin’ me. What’s the use o’ puttin’ on airs like that ? If he wanted rocks why didn’t he say so, and he’d a got ’em long ago.”—Chicago Ledger.