Part 37 (2/2)

Putt yer gates down two minyits before she comes and keep them down till she's pasht. Mind now, she must niver be late on this section.

Niver wan minyit late. I won't sthand f'r it. Remimber--th' Impire Shtate Express. She must niver be late here.”

Hiram promised. At 2 P.M., when the Empire State Express was due in two minutes, he dropped the crossing gates and stood by with the white flag to wave her along. Three minutes pa.s.sed, four, five--and still no train. As a matter of fact, she had lost half an hour at an open draw on the Harlem River in the morning, and was laboring mightily to regain lost time in spite of her fast schedule.

Seven minutes late, and then Hiram heard a wild shriek a mile away and saw the express coming. He darted into the shanty, grabbed a red flag, and leaped out upon the track, waving it furiously. The engineer shut off, threw over the reverse lever, gave her sand and the air; and the mighty train stopped short, in a whirl of sand, cinders, and sparks, brakes creaking and pa.s.sengers pitchpoling everywhere.

”What's the matter now?” roared the engineer, thrusting half his body out of the cab and glaring down at Hiram.

”Be yeou th' ingineer?” asked the flagman, peering at him with suspicion.

”Yes, yes! Whad-do-you want?”

”I want t' know whut's made ye so goldinged late? Ca.s.sidy says he wun't stand f'r it.”

During a match at St. Andrews, Scotland, a rustic was struck in the eye accidentally by a golf ball. Running up to his a.s.sailant, he yelled:

”This'll cost ye five pounds--five pounds!”

”But I called out 'fore' as loudly as I could,” explained the golfer.

”Did ye, sir?” replied the troubled one, much appeased. ”Weel, I didna hear; I'll take fower.”

Mark Twain observed once at a public dinner that he had written a friendly letter to Queen Victoria protesting against a tax being levied in England on his head, on the ground that it was a gas-works.

”I don't know you,” he wrote, ”but I've met your son. He was at the head of a procession in the Strand, and I was on a 'bus.” Years afterward he met the King at Homburg, and they had a long talk. At parting the King said: ”I am glad to have met you again.” That last word troubled Mark, who asked whether the King had not mistaken him for some one else. The reply--”Why, don't you remember meeting me in the Strand when I was at the head of a procession and you were on a 'bus?” revealed the strength of Royal memories.

An Irishman and an Englishman were recounting feats of physical prowess. The Englishman, by way of showing his strength, said that he was accustomed to swim across the Thames three times before breakfast every morning.

”Well,” said the Irishman, ”that may be all right, but it do seem to me that your clothes would be on the wrong side of the river all the time.”

An excess luggage porter at a large railway station said to a ”commercial,” ”I see your luggage is overweight, sir.” ”Ah! your visionary powers are far too acute for me, my friend.” ”What did you say, sir?” ”I say you can see too well for me.” ”Ah! to be sure, sir.

I take you----” ”Could you see as well now if you had sixpence over one eye?” ”Well, I don't know, sir, but I'm darned well sure I couldn't see at all if I'd another over t'other one.”

Henry James, the American novelist, lives at Rye, one of the Cinque Ports, but recently he left Rye for a time and took a house in the country near the estate of a millionaire jam manufacturer, retired.

This man, having married an earl's daughter, was ashamed of the trade whereby he had piled up his fortune.

The jam manufacturer one day wrote Mr. James an impudent letter, vowing that it was outrageous the way the James servants were trespa.s.sing on his grounds. Mr. James wrote back:

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