ALL—But we don't know the story of the old man and the railroad runners.
GROSVENOR—Don't you? Then I'll sing it to you.
Sings.
An old man sat in a railroad shop,
And all around was a loving crop
Of runners and agents with smile sublime,
Working that man for their favorite line.
But for agents the old man felt no whim;
Tho' he charmed them they charmed not him;
From agents and runners and smiles he strode,
For he'd set his love on the Alton Road.
The Alton Road,
The Alton Road.
Their most æsthetic, peripatetic
Fancies this way ran:
If others we wheedle, why, we indeed'll
Wheedle this queer old man.
CHORUS:
Their most æsthetic, peripatetic
Fancies this way ran.
If others we wheedle, why we indeed'll
Wheedle this queer old man.
⁂
The runners and agents expressed surprise;
The conductors opened their well-drilled eyes.
The runners, they felt shut up, no doubt,
And the agents they found themselves cut out.
But the queer old man was as solid as stone,
"It's the Alton Road that takes me home"
That's what he cried, that queer old boy.
"And it's the only road that gives me joy."
That queer old man,
That queer old man.
These most æsthetic, peripatetic
Runners skipped and ran;
For by no means ever can agent ever
Corrupt that queer old man.