s, preparatory to his morning shave, he found the red-headed boy
in his night shirt, sitting at a table with an old telegraph instrument
that looked as though it had been picked out of a scrap-pile, and the
boy was ticking away for dear life, his hair standing on end, his brow
corrugated, and his eyes glaring.

[Illustration: What dum foolishness you got on hand now 177]

"What dum foolishness you got on hand now?" asked the old man, as he set
a cup of hot water on the mantel, and began to mix up the lather. "What
you ticking away on that contrivance for, and looking wise?"

"This is a telegraph office," said the boy, as he stopped operations
long enough to draw his cold bare feet up under him, and pulled his
night shirt down to cover his knees. "I am learning to telegraph, and
am going into training for president of a railroad. Did you see in
the papers the other day that Mr. Earling was elected president of a
railroad, and did you know that he started in as a telegraph operator
and a poor boy, with hair the color of tow? They used to call him
Tow-Head."

"Yes, I read about that," said Uncle Ike, as he looked in the glass
to see if the lather was all right on his face, and began to strop his
razor. "I knew that boy when he was telegraphing. But he knew what all
those sounds meant. You just keep ticking away, and don't know one tick
from another."

"Yes, I do," said the boy, as he smashed away at the key. "That long
sound, and the short one, and the one about half as long as the long
one--that spells d-a-m, dam."

"Well, what do you commence your education spelling out cuss words for?"
asked the old man, as he raked the razor down one side of his face,
pulling his mouth around to one side so it looked like the mouth of a
red-horse fish. "Anybody would think you were in training for one of
these railroad superintendents who swear at the men so their hair will
stand, and then swear at them because they don't get their hair cut.
The railroad presidents and general managers nowadays don't swear a blue
streak, and keep the men guessing whether they will get discharged for
talking back. This man Earling never swore a half a string in his life,
and in thirty years of railroading he never spoke a cross word to a
living soul, and his brow was never corrugated as much as yours has
been spelling out that word dam. Got any idea what railroad you will be
president of?" and the old man wiped his razor, stropped it on the palm