"I tell you, sir, this town needs more life and energy. Something needs to come along and shake things up."
Just then the Inter-state Express dashed by at sixty miles an hour, and "something" came along. It was a heavy mail bag tossed from Uncle Sam's car, and it took poor Job plumb in the centre of gravity. Over he went, like an Arabian acrobat. When we picked him out of the ditch he looked like what's left after a Kansas cyclone. But he was game.
"Boys, this time the laugh's on me," he cried. "The evening's artificial irrigation will be charged to my house."
I hate to do it, but I must. When Job tries to cut me out of a trade with his stories, I'll make him the hero of one of mine. Then I guess I'll coax a little business by his fat sides.
Speaking of trains, reminds me of the laugh some of the boys had on Sol Lichinstein the other day. He was to take the 3.30 out of Michigan City, and about quarter of three his great bulk—he is very corpulent—was seen dashing down the street at furious pace. A half hour later two or three other drummers, who had proceeded leisurely to the station, found him still out of breath. "What made you run so, Sol?" asked one of them.
"Hang it all!" he answered, "the clock in front of the jeweler's store in the hotel block was wrong. It said 3.20."
"The clock on the post, Sol?" asked one of the party.
"Yes; confound it!"
"Well, Sol, that clock's said 3.20 every time I've been here for four years. The hands are painted on."
When the story was told to a party of us, one man spoke up after the laugh and said: "Well, it's not surprising. Lichinstein is always chock full of business."