"we not only run our trains fast, but we
also start them fast. I remember the case of a friend of mine whose wife
went to see him off for the west on the Pennsylvania at Jersey City. As
the train was about to start my friend said his final good-by to his
wife, and leaned down from the car platform to kiss her. The train
started, and, would you believe it, my friend found himself kissing a
strange woman on the platform at Trenton!"

And the other men gave it up.

"Say, young man," asked an old lady at the ticket-office, "what time
does the next train pull in here and how long does it stay?"

"From two to two to two-two," was the curt reply.

"Well, I declare! Be you the whistle?"

An express on the Long Island Railroad was tearing away at a wild and
awe-inspiring rate of six miles an hour, when all of a sudden it stopped
altogether. Most of the passengers did not notice the difference; but
one of them happened to be somewhat anxious to reach his destination
before old age claimed him for its own. He put his head through the
window to find that the cause of the stop was a cow on the track. After
a while they continued the journey for half an hour or so, and
then--another stop.

"What's wrong now?" asked the impatient passenger of the conductor.

"A cow on the track."

"But I thought you drove it off."

"So we did," said the conductor, "but we caught up with it again."

The president of one great southern railway pulled into a southern city
in his private car. It was also the terminal of a competing road, and
the private car of the president of the other line was on a side track.
There was great rivalry between these two lines, which extended from the
president of each down to the most humble employe. In the evening the
colored cook from one of the cars wandered over to pass the time of day
with the cook on the other car.

One of these roads had recently had an appalling list of accidents, and
the death-toll was exceptionally high. The cook from this road sauntered
up to the back platform of the private car, and after an interchange of
courtesies said:

"Well, how am youh ole jerkwatah railroad these days? Am you habbing
prosper's times?"

"Man," said the other, "we-all am so prosperous that if we was any moah
prosperous we just naturally couldn't stand hit."

"Hough!" said the other, "we-all am moah prosperous than you-all."

"Man," said the other, "we dun carry moah'n a million passengers last
m