There was a traffic official in an eastern metropolis some years ago, representing a fine railroad but kept in the chair by other people’s financial power, who was notorious for that stealthy, furtive habit of fumbling with his papers without looking up, as though fearful his eyes would convict him of his sins against men.
In the category of queer ones could be listed the eccentric who accosted a friend of mine, now doing trustworthy executive work for the government railways, with “What, you here again?”
“Just for three minutes, Sir, to place a routing order!” “You won’t be here a minute, I’m too busy. I can’t be bothered by you and your routing order; it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.” With people like this unmuzzled and at large, can you wonder at the increase in crime.
Another good acquaintance who was invited to an inner office to unburden his mind and concisely recited the nature of his business without molestation, was dumbfounded when finished to observe the creature before him, without parley, touch a buzzer, summon a servitor and request him to “Shew this gentleman out.” What would you rather do than live with him? Some men’s physical boundaries and narrow-minded outlook are so small and contemptible that if a mosquito laid out a nine hole golf course on their torso he would be crowded for room.
A decade or so ago there dwelt in a town an hour’s ride east of Toronto, an individual like a ruffled grouse who thought to slay his interviewer summarily with “What you tell me goes in one ear and out the other,” as he made a personally conducted tour to the door. Quickly came the retort courteous: “I am not surprised Mr. —— there is nothing there to stop it.”
Now comes that robust type that would probably not wince when getting it back in kind if his antagonist could fittingly measure up to his standard in words and deeds. Picture the horned and forbidding monster, swollen with pride of place, who greets the caller as though he were going to swallow him whole and allow his gastric juice to do the rest: “Well, your company has one H— of a nerve to send you out here asking me for business: you built a station, some big contracts were let, but you were all looking out of the window when I wanted a slice,” finishing with a coup de grace, “What have you got to say about that?” His caller replied, “I guess our management took a leaf out of your book; how much of your business have we handled in the past ten years, tell me that? We learn to know who our friends are and when we have some favors to place we don’t hurry with them on a platter to the people who forget our route, but try to remember those who realize that if we are lucky we run a train or two about once a week out west.” The lengths to which some folks will go to make personal a neutral issue is astonishing. A man who had been employed in Chicago by a firm that could not prevail on the “C. & A.” to give them an order, came to Canada to work for an Ontario industry and expressed his intention to gratify that grudge by witholding shipments of the new employer from the railway he had placed under the ban.
The book of boors will admit of one more entry, being a letter I have permission to reproduce, which was addressed to one snob by a conscientious and sensitive young agent who has since transferred his energies to another channel.
Dear Sir—
The three sentences below—
“Who are you and what do you want?” “I would be ashamed to be so unpatriotic as to work for Yankee employers.”