I closed my eyes in horror
I could stand the suspense no longer. I opened my eyes, but all seemed blurred before them. “Is he dead?” I asked of a man standing by my side. “No; he’s all right,” the man answered. “But he fell, didn’t he?” I cried. “O, yes, he fell all right,” he said; “but he landed on a bunch of rubber-necks and bounced back on the scaffold again.”
Wishing to make the jump from New York to Chicago a few weeks ago, I called on a friend of mine who stands pretty well with one of the officials of a certain railroad. I asked my friend if he thought he could get me a rate over that line, and he promised to see what he could do for me.
He said: “I’ll go right down, and if I can possibly get you a rate I’ll send word up to your hotel.” I said: “All right, old man; I’ll appreciate it very much.”
After waiting around the hotel for about an hour I recollected that I had a little business to transact down town, and I thought I’d have time to attend to it and get back to my hotel before the message arrived concerning the rate. So I bought a newspaper and jumped on a down-town car.
I had scarcely rode over four or five blocks when the conductor came by and shook me roughly by the arm and said, in a rough, surly manner: “Hey, you! Did you expectorate? [Expect a rate.] Now don’t sit there and tell me that you didn’t,” he added, “for I know you did.”
