Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1885 — ECCENTRICITY IN LUNCH. [ARTICLE]

ECCENTRICITY IN LUNCH.

BY BILL NYE.

Over at Kasota Junction, the other day, 1 found a living curiosity. He was a man of about medium height, perhaps 45 years of age, of a quiet disposition,And not noticeable or peculiar in his general manner. He runs the railroad eating-house at that point, and the one odd characteristic which he has makes him well known through three or four States. I could not illustrate his eccentricity any better than by relating a circumstance that occurred to me at the Junction last week. I had just eaten breakfast there, and paid for it. I stepped up to the cigar case and asked this man if he had a “rattling good cigar.” Without knowing it Jyhad struck the very point upon which this man seems to be a crank, if you will allow me that expression, though it doesn’t fit very wqll id this place. He looked at me in a sad and subdued manner, and said: “No, sir; I haven’t a rattling good cigar in the house. I have some cigars there that I bought for Havana fillers, but they are mostly filled with pieces of Colorado Madur overalls. There’s a box over yonder that I bought for good, straight 10-eent cigars, but thy are only a chaos of hay and Flora, Fino and Damfino, all soaked irito a Wisconsin wrapper. Over in the o pther end of the case is a brand of cigars that were to knock the tar out of all other kinds of weeds, according to the urbane rustler who sold them to rhe, and then drew on me before I could light one of them. Well, instead of being a fine Colorado claro with a high-priced wrapper, they are common Mexicano stinkaros in a Mother Hubbard wrapper. The commercial tourist who sold me those cigars, and then drew on me at sight, was a good deal better on the draw than his cigars are. If you will notice, you will see thht each cigar hal a spinal column on it, and this outer debris is wrapped around it. One man bought a cigar out of that box last week. I told him, though, just as lam telling you, that they were no good, md if he bought one he would regret it But he took one and went out on '.he veranda to smoke it. Then he stepped on a melon rind and fell with great force on his side. When we picked him up he gasped oneo or twice ikfld expired. We opened his vest hurriedly, and found that, in falling, this bouquet de Gluefactoro cigar, with the spinal column, had been driven through his breast-bone, and had penetrated his heart. The wrapper of the cigar wasn’t so much as cracked.” “But doesn’t it impair your trade to run on in this wild, reckless way about your cigars?" “It may, at first, but not after awhile. I always tell people what my cigars are made of, and then then they can’t blame me; so, after awhile they get to believe what Isay about them. I often wonder that no cigar man ever tried this way before. Ido just the same way about my lunch counter. If a man steps up and wants a fresh ham sandwich, I give it to him if I’ve got it, and if I haven’t I tell him so. If you turn my sandwiches over you will find the date of publication on every one. If they are not fresh, and I have no fresh ones, I tell the customer that they are not so blamed fresh as the young man with the gauze mustache, but that I cari remember very well when they were fresh, and if his artificial teeth fit him pretty well, he can try one. “It’s just the same with boiled eggs. I have a rubber dating stamp, and as soon as the eggs are turned over to me by the hen, for inspection, I date them. Then they are boiled and another date in red, is stamped on them. If one of my clerks should date an egg ahead, I would fire him too quick. “On this account, people who know me will skip a meal at Missouri Junction, in order to come here and' eat things that are not clouded with mystery. Ido not keep any poor stuff when I can help it, but if I do, I don’t conceal the horrible fact. “Of course a new cook will sometimes smuggle a late date on to a mediaeval egg and sell it, bufc he has to change his name and flee. “I suppose that if every eating-house should date everything, and be square With the public, it would be an old story and wouldn’t pay; but as it is, no one trying^t©"’compete with me, I do well oiijr'of it, and people come here out-of furiosity a good deal. I try to do right and win the public esteem, is, that the general public never did me any harm, and the majority of people that travel are a kind that I may meet in a future state. I should hate to have a thousand traveling men holding nuggets of rancid ham sandwich under my nose through all eternity, and know that I had lied about it. It’s an honest fact, if I knew I’d got to stand up and apologize for my hand-made, all-around, seamless pies, and quarantined cigars, heaven would be no object.”— Boston Globe.