“There is no need of repeating all this to me. What do you want me to do?” I see by Martin’s voice that he wuz madder than that wet hen a-settin’, and obstinate.
“We want to have you give orders to go more slowly through crowded places and put fenders on the cars, so as to lessen the peril as much as may be, so we poor people, who have to live and labor in these dangerous places, can carry a lighter heart to our hard daily toil.”
“Leave me your address,” sez Martin sharp and cold, “and I will communicate with you.” Then sez he, “James, show these men to the door. Good-morning,” sez he. The door closed on the men, and Martin crossed the hall with a quick step, and come right into the room where I sot. In his haste to git out of their sight he had, as the sayin’ is, “jumped from the fryin’-pan into the fire.”
For I sez, and tears wuz in my eyes as I sed it—
“You will grant their request, Martin?”
“No, I will not grant their request;” and he went on sarcastically, “I don’t know what you people want. Do you want to do away with cars and railroads and go back to ox-teams and pillions? Here a few men take a big risk, put all their capital into an enterprise, doing the public an incalculable good, and then they have to be badgered night and day by the very ones they have benefited, and by a set of philanthropic fools.” I guess he meant me by that last term, but I didn’t care; I wouldn’t have cared if he’d called me a plain fool—I knew I wuzn’t. When you are out a-ketchin’ a tiger you don’t care for a muskeeter’s bite; no, your mind is sot on the tiger.
I sez, “The cost is but triflin’ to one of your means. Why not do it?”
“Because I am capable of attending to my own business, and I am not to be bossed by a lot of workingmen and wild-eyed reformers and sentimental idiots—I’ll do what I please.”
Sez I, “Mebby you will, Martin, and mebby you won’t.”
Jest as I said these words a cry come up from the streets—“A child run over! a lady killed! a child and a lady killed!”