"To make the locomotive tender," and the young man from the office never smiled.
"What kind of a plant is the Virginia creeper?"
"It isn't a plant; it's a railroad."
The president of a certain railway in Kentucky which is only ten miles long, was exchanging annual passes one year with officials of other railways.
He enclosed an annual pass on his railway to Stuyvesant Fish, then president of the Illinois Central Railway, for himself and family, with the request that Fish reciprocate.
It seems that Fish had never heard of the Kentucky road, so he instructed his secretary to look it up. As a result the pass was returned with the following curt letter:
DEAR SIR:
I find that your railroad is only ten miles long, while my road is eleven hundred miles long. I herewith return your pass made out in favor of myself and family.
Yours truly,
STUYVESANT FISH.
This was too much for the old Kentucky colonel, who made the following notation on Fish's letter and sent it back: