Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1907 — THE DESERTED SANDWICH. [ARTICLE]

THE DESERTED SANDWICH.

It Had the Fatal Gift as Beauty u 4 / t It Wa* CoTeted by Many. “Don’t leave your sandwich up there on the advertising boards,” said Tommy’s mother; “the train will come along soon and you will forget It” But Tommy did not heed the warning, the train came find went away with Tommy and his mother and the others, bound for Coney Island, and the sandwich remained, says the New York Sun. , It was - a remarkably neat package for a sandwich. Lying there on top of the advertising boards it looked as If It had been done up by a Jeweler, so rectangular was it and so precisely were the ends of the wrapper folded over.

An elderly man stood near by reading his newspaper. He had heard the talk about the sandwich and he noted that the event had turned out as Tommy’s mother had predicted. A young girl eame up the stairs and walked along the platform. She saw the neat package and looked from it toward the man. He drew a step nearer to it, glanced at It as If to assure himself that it was still there, and resumed reading his paper. Several passengers alighted from the next train, and as they passed the sandwich most of them saw it and the man and tried to decide whether ft belonged to him. One yonng fellow strolled back, after going as far as the door of the waiting room, and walked slowly up and down the platformT” The elderly man stepped to the edge of the platform and looked along the track, as If to see whether the train was coming. Just as he turned to take his former position he saw the young man lingering close to the sandwich. He cleared his throat with a loud “Ahem!” and rested his arm on the advertising boards a few feet away from the package. The young man took the next train that came along. A large woman rigged out in clothes that she evidently thought were just the thing hurried up the stairs and was rushing toward the train that had just come in. Her eye caught the package, with its jewelry store appearance, and she did notenter the train.

She looked up and down the track and glanced toward the sandwich, and from it toward the man. He folded his paper, put his reading glasses in his pocket and again stepped to the edge of the platform and looked along the rails. The woman eyed him and the package alternately. The roar of a train was heard. As It slowed down the man, all unmindful of the package, hurried toward one of the car gates. The man stood on the car platform as the train moved out. By leaning outward as the train rushed away he could watch the package long enough to see the large woman grab -it from the top of the signboards, thrust it under her summer wrap and hurry down the platform stairs faster than she came up. Quite naturally he smiled.