"Neither of us," replied the gentlemen; "that was the governor you spoke to as you drove up."
"Yeou dun't say so! Wall, he was pesky mad about som'-thin'. What on airth ails the ole feller?"
"Can't say," was the response; "but here he comes again."
"Now, now come in, come in and see for yourselves," cried the excited Governor of the great Key Stone State; "there's a roaring fire of burning, blazing, black rock, anthracite coal!"
But, alas! the cross sticks having given away in the interim, and the coal being thrown down upon the ashes and stone hearth,—was all out!
"Wall," says our migratory Yankee, who followed the crowd into the house, "I guess I know what yeou be at, guv'ner, but I'll tell yeou naow, yeou can't begin to keep that darn'd hard stuff burning, 'less yeou fix it up in a grate, like, gin it air, and an almighty draught; yeou see, guv'ner, I've been making experiments a darn'd long while with it!"
The laugh of the governor's friends subsided as the pedler went into a practical theory on burning stone coal; the respite was signed—hospitalities of the mansion extended to all present, and in course of a few days, our Yankee and the governor rigged up a grate, and soon settled the question—will our black rocks burn?
Sure Cure.
Travel is a good invention to cure the blues and condense worldly effects. When Cutaway went to California, "I carried," said he, "a pile of despondency, and more baggage, boots, and boxes, than would fit out a caravan. After an absence of just fourteen calendar months, I started homewards, and was so boiling over with hope and fond anticipation, that I could hardly keep in my old boots! And all the dunnage I had left, wouldn't fill a pocket-handkerchief, or sell to a paper-maker for four cents!"