The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII

"That comes easy for you; but I didn't know you could make an asset of it."

"It's part of my working capital. Now you'd better cut loose from old man Carr and move up here and get a suite near me. I've got more than I can do,—I'm always needing a lawyer,—organizing companies, legality of bonds, and so on. Dignified work. Lots of out-of-town people come here and I'll put you in touch with them. I threw a good thing to Van Cleve only the other day. Bond foreclosure suit for some fellows in the East that I sell stuff to. They wrote and asked me the name of a good man. I thought of you—old college days and all that—but Van Cleve had just done me a good turn and I had to let him have it. But you'd better come over. You'll never know the world's in motion in that musty old hole of Carr's. You get timid and afraid to go near the water by staying on shore so long. But say, Morris, you seem to be getting along pretty well in the social push. Your name looks well in the society column. How do you work it, anyhow?"

"Don't expect me to give the snap away. The secret's valuable. And I'm not really inside; I am only peering through the pickets!"

"Tush! Get thee hence! I saw you in a box at the theater the other night,—evidently Mrs. Carr's party. There's nothing like mixing business with pleasure. Ah me!"

He yawned and stroked his beard and laughed, with a fine showing of white teeth.

"I don't see what's pricking you with small pins of envy. You were there with about the gayest crowd I ever saw at a theater; and it looked like your own party."

"Don't say a word," implored Balcomb, putting out his hand. "Members of the board of managers of the state penitentiary, their wives, their cousins and their aunts. Say, weren't those beauteous whiskers! My eye! Well, the evening netted me about five hundred plunks, and I got to see the show and to eat a good supper in the bargain. Some reformers were to appear before them that night officially, and my friends wanted to keep them busy. I was called into the game to do something,—hence these tears. Lawsy! I earned my money. Did you see those women?—about two million per cent. pure jay!"

"You ought to cut out that sort of thing; it isn't nice."

"Oh, you needn't be so virtuous. Carr keeps a whole corps of rascals to spread apple-butter on the legislature corn-bread."

"You'd better speak to him about it. He'd probably tell Mrs. Carr to ask you to dinner right away."

"Oh, that will come in time. I don't expect to do everything at once. You may see me up there some time; and when you do, don't shy off like a colt at the choo-choos. By the way, I'd like to be one of the bright particular stars of the Dramatic Club if you can fix it. You remember that amateur theatricals are rather in my line."

"I do. At college you were one of the most persistent Thespians we had, and one of the worst. But let social matters go. You haven't told me how to get rich quick yet. I haven't had the nerve to chuck the law as you have."

"Well," continued Balcomb, expansively, "a fellow has got to take what he can when he can. One swallow doesn't make a summer; one sucker doesn't make a spring; so we must catch the birdling en route or en passant, as our dear professor of modern languages used to try to get us to remark. Say, between us old college friends, I cleared up a couple of thousand last week just too easy for any use. You know Singerly, the popular undertaker,—Egyptian secret of embalming, lady and gentleman attendants, night and day,—always wears a spray of immortelles in his lapel and a dash of tuberose essence on his handkerchief. Well, Singerly and I operated together in the smoothest way you ever saw. Excuse me!" He lay back and howled. "Well, there was an old house up here on High Street just where it begins to get good; very exclusive—old families and all that. It belonged to an estate, and I got an option on it just for fun. I began taking Singerly up there to look at it. We'd measure it, and step it off, and stop and palaver on the sidewalk. In a day or two those people up there began to take notice and to do me the honor to call on me. You see, my boy, an undertaking shop—even a fashionable one—for a neighbor, isn't pleasant; it wouldn't add, as one might say, to the sauce piquante of life; and as a reminder of our mortality—a trifle depressing, as you will admit."

He took the cigar from his mouth and examined the burning end of it thoughtfully.

"I sold the option to one of Singerly's prospective neighbors for the matter of eleven hundred. He's a retired wholesale grocer and didn't need the money."

"Seems to me you're cutting pretty near the dead-line, Jack. That's not a pretty sort of hold-up. You might as well take a sandbag and lie in wait by night."

"Great rhubarb! You make me tired. I'm not robbing the widow and the orphan, but a fat old Dutchman who doesn't ask anything of life but his sauerkraut and beer."

"And you do! You'd better give your ethical sense a good tonic before you butt into the penal code."

"Come off! I've got a better scheme even than the Singerly deal. The school board's trying to locate a few schools in up-town districts. Very undesirable neighbors. I rather think I can make a couple of turns there. This is all strictly inter nos, as Professor Morton used to say in giving me, as a special mark of esteem, a couple of hundred extra lines of Virgil to keep me in o' nights."

He looked at his watch and gave the stem-key a few turns before returning it to his pocket.

"You'll have to excuse me, old man. I've got a date with Adams, over at the Central States Trust Company. He's a right decent chap when you know how to handle him. I want to get them to finance a big apartment house scheme. I've got an idea for a flat that will make the town sit up and gasp."

"Don't linger on my account, Jack. I only stopped in to see whether you kept your good spirits. I feel as though I'd had a shower bath. Come along."

Several men were waiting to see Balcomb in the outer office and he shook hands with all of them and begged them to come again, taking care to mention that he had been called to the Central States Trust Company and had to hurry away.

He called peremptorily to the passing elevator-car to wait, and as he and Leighton squeezed into it, he continued his half of an imaginary conversation in a tone that was audible to every passenger.

"I could have had those bonds, if I had wanted them; but I knew there was a cloud on them—the county was already over its legal limit. I guess those St. Louis fellows will be sorry they were so enterprising—here we are!"

And then in a lower tone to Leighton: "That was for old man Dameron's benefit. Did you see him jammed back in the corner of the car? Queer old party and as tight as a drum. When I can work off some assessable and non-interest bearing bonds on him, it'll be easy to sell Uncle Sam's Treasury a gold brick. They say the old man has a daughter who is finer than gold; yea, than much fine gold. I'm going to look her up, if I ever get time. You'd better come over soon and pick out an office. Verbum sat sapienti, as our loving teacher used to say. So long!"

Leighton walked back to his office in good humor and better contented with his own lot.

THE WICKED ZEBRA[3 - Lippincott's Magazine.]

BY FRANK ROE BATCHELDER

The zebra always seems malicious,—
He kicks and bites 'most all the time;
I fear that he's not only vicious,
But guilty of some dreadful crime.

The mere suggestion makes me falter
In writing of this wicked brute;
Although he has escaped the halter,
He wears for life a convict's suit.

THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH

BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE

One bright winter morning, the twenty-ninth day of December, Anno Domini 1879, I was journeying from Lebanon, Indiana, where I had sojourned Sunday, to Indianapolis. I did not see the famous cedars, and I supposed they had been used up for lead-pencils, and moth-proof chests, and relics, and souvenirs; for Lebanon is right in the heart of the holy land. That part of Indiana was settled by Second Adventists, and they have sprinkled goodly names all over their heritage. As the train clattered along, stopping at every station to trade off some people who were tired of traveling for some other people who were tired of staying at home, I got out my writing-pad, pointed a pencil, and wondered what manner of breakfast I would be able to serve for the ever hungry "Hawkeye" next morning.

I was beginning to think I would have to disguise some "left-overs" under a new name, as the thrifty housekeeper knows how to do, when my colleague, my faithful yoke-fellow, who has many a time found for me a spring of water in the desert place—the Brakeman, came down the aisle of the car. He glanced at the tablet and pencil as I would look at his lantern, put my right hand into a cordial compress that abode with my fingers for ten minutes after he went away, and seating himself easily on the arm of the seat, put the semaphore all right for me by saying:

"Say, I went to church yesterday."

"Good boy," I said, "and what church did you attend?"

"Guess," was his reply.

"Some Union Mission chapel?" I ventured.

"N-no," he said, "I don't care to run on these branch roads very much. I don't get a chance to go to church every Sunday, and when I can go, I like to run on the main line, where your trip is regular, and you make schedule time, and don't have to wait on connections. I don't care to run on a branch. Good enough, I reckon, but I don't like it."

"Episcopal?" I guessed.

"Limited express!" he said, "all parlor cars, vestibuled, and two dollars extra for a seat; fast time, and only stop at the big stations. Elegant line, but too rich for a brakeman. All the trainmen in uniform; conductor's punch and lanterns silver-plated; train-boys fenced up by themselves and not allowed to offer anything but music. Passengers talk back at the conductor. Trips scheduled through the whole year, so when you get aboard you know just where you're going and how long it will take you. Most systematic road in the country and has a mighty nice class of travel. Never hear of a receiver appointed on that line. But I didn't ride in the parlor car yesterday."

"Universalist?" I suggested.

"Broad gauge," the Brakeman chuckled; "does too much complimentary business to be prosperous. Everybody travels on a pass. Conductor doesn't get a cash fare once in fifty miles. Stops at all way-stations and won't run into anything but a union depot. No smoking-car allowed on the train because the company doesn't own enough brimstone to head a match. Train orders are rather vague, though; and I've noticed the trainmen don't get along very well with the passengers. No, I didn't go on the broad gauge, though I have some good friends on that road who are the best people in the world. Been running on it all their lives."

"Presbyterian?" I hinted.

"Narrow gauge, eh?" said the Brakeman; "pretty track; straight as a rule; tunnel right through the heart of a mountain rather than go around it; spirit level grade; strict rules, too; passengers have to show their tickets before they get on the train; cars a little bit narrow for sleepers; have to sit one in a seat and no room in the aisle to dance. No stop-over tickets allowed; passenger must go straight through to the station he's ticketed for, or stay off the car. When the car's full, gates are shut; cars built at the shops to hold just so many, and no more allowed on. That road is run right up to the rules and you don't often hear of an accident on it. Had a head-on collision at Schenectady union station and run over a weak bridge at Cincinnati, not many years ago, but nobody hurt, and no passengers lost. Great road."

"May be you rode with the Agnostics?" I tried.