The Conductor
"One day, soon after they'd gone to a new city, Margaret was goin' down town to take her music lesson. She went alone because Magdalene was laid up with a headache and wanted the house quiet. When the conductor come along for the fare, Margaret was lookin' out of the window, and, absent-minded like, she give him a penny instead of a nickel.
"The conductor give it back to her, and asked her if she was so young she could go for half fare, and Margaret says, right sharp, when she give him the nickel, 'It's not so long since I was travellin' on half-fare.'
"The conductor says: 'I'd hate to have been hangin' up by the thumbs since you was,' says he. Of course this made Margaret good and mad, and she says to the conductor, 'How old do you think I am?'
"The conductor says: 'I ain't paid to think durin' union hours, but I imagine that you ain't old enough to lie about your age.'
Ronald Macdonald
"Just then an old woman with a green parrot in a big cage fell off the car while she was gettin' off backwards as usual, and Margaret didn't have no more chance to fight with the conductor. She saw, however, that he was terrible good lookin'—like the dummy in the tailor's window. It says in the story that 'Ronald Macdonald'—that was his name—was as handsome as a young Greek god and, though lowly in station, he would have adorned a title had it been his.'
"Margaret got to doin' some thinkin' about herself, and wonderin' why it was she didn't seem to age none. And whenever she happened to get onto Ronald Macdonald's car, she noticed that he was awful polite and chivalrous to women. He waited patiently when any two of 'em was decidin' who was to pay the fare and findin' their purses, and sayin', 'You must let me pay next time,' and he would tickle a cryin' baby under the chin and make it bill and coo like a bird.
"Did you ever see a baby bill? I never did neither, but that's what it said in the paper. I suppose it has some reference to the expense of their comin' and their keep through the whoopin' cough stage and the measles, and so on. There don't neither of you know nothin' about it 'cause you ain't married, but when Roger come, his pa was obliged to mortgage the house, and the mortgage didn't get took off until Roger was out of dresses and goin' to school and beginnin' to write with ink.
Fine Manners