He slapped him on the back and said, jokingly: “Halloa! Give me that umbrella!”
When the man turned and McGinty saw his face he realized that he was an utter stranger. Naturally, he was embarrassed. But the other man appeared even more surprised, and immediately handed over the umbrella.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “I didn’t know it belonged to you.”
Cassidy, a green brakeman on the Colorado Mudline was making his first trip to Ute Pass. They were going up a very steep grade, and with unusual difficulty the engineer succeeded in reaching the top. At the Cascade station, looking out of his cab, the engineer saw the new brakeman and said with a sigh of relief:
“I tell you what, my lad, we had a job to get up there, didn’t we?”
“Shure and we did,” said Cassidy, “and if I hadn’t put on the brakes, we’d have slipped back.”
EITHER OR AYTHER.