Oh, the wild howls they wrought;
Right to the end they fought!
Some tune they sang, but not—
Not the Old Hundred.
The Book Agent Beats the Bandit.
Brown, Jones and Robinson, three of as good fellows as ever melted the heart of a country trader to the merry music of the pliant chin, sat one evening of last week in the smoking compartment of a chair car on the R. and T. H. Western Railroad. With them was a tall, thin, dyspeptic man with sandy hair, dressed in a rusty suit of black. Nature had endowed him with long legs, and his tailor with short pants. His coat collar was rich enough in accumulated grease to keep a soap factory going for a month. His mouth was of brass, and his cheek as hard as last year’s cider. He was a book agent. Already had he gobbled up the drummers for a Life of Christ and Pocket Encyclopedia of 215 numbers, when suddenly a real
Jesse-James-like train bandit opened the door and stood, pistol in hand, before the quartet.
Brown’s soul sank down into the heels of his boots. Beads of perspiration big as snow balls stood on Jones’ classic brow, while his hair lifted his hat two solid inches from the crown of his head. Robinson murmured the first verse of “Ever of Thee I’m Fondly Dreaming,” and thought he was praying. But the book agent bounded from his seat with a “How do, stranger? Delighted to see you. Do let me show you my superb ‘History of Boone County,’ a perfect bonanza of domestic peace and happiness to every householder who is fortunate enough to possess one. Three hundred pages of elegant letter press, printed on toned paper and embellished with fine steel engravings and an official map of the State. A carefully compiled, correct topographical and historical——”
“Shut up!” roared the bandit.
“Shut up? You bet it will, and fastens itself with a double-action brass clasp—my own invention—and from its simplicity of design and beauty of construction worth half the price of the book. Given away, sir; literally given away, for $3 in boards or $4.50 in morocco with beveled edges.”