‘P’raps Cleveland’s your destination?’ insinuated Mr Boggs. ‘No? Can’t be going this roundabout way to Chicago?’
No reply was vouchsafed.
‘Well,’ cried Boggs despairingly, ‘I s’pose you’ve no objection to telling where you are going?’
‘Well sir,’ exclaimed the man, ‘I’m going for seven years!’
Then the deputy-sheriff said he would rather not have folks talking to his prisoners, and Boggs gave in.
This puts us in mind of Mark Twain’s anecdote of Artemus Ward and a travelling bore, between whom the following amusing colloquy took place: ‘Did you hear that last thing of Horace Greeley’s?’
‘Greeley, Greeley, Horace Greeley; who is he?’ said Artemus.
Five minutes elapsed, then came: ‘George Francis Train is making a good deal of disturbance over in England; do you think they will put him in prison?’
‘Train, Train, George Francis Train,’ said Artemus solemnly; ‘I never heard of him.’
The tormentor tried another tack; he said: ‘What do you think about Grant’s chance for the Presidency?’