rs why we can't reduce th'
fare."

"Where is the general freight agent?"

"He's gone out in th' country t' attend a meeting o' th' grange an'
tell th' farmers why we ain't got no freight-cars."

"Who's running the blame railroad, anyway?"

"The newspapers and th' legislatures."

An old Cornish woman who had never before traveled by rail went to a
country station to catch a train. She sat herself down on a seat
in the station, and after sitting there for about two hours, the
station-master came up to her and asked where she was going. On her
telling him, he said:

"Why, my good woman, the train has just gone, and there isn't another
for a long time!"

"Why, lor'!" says the old lady, "I thought the whole consarn moved!"

"What good," asked the angry would-be passenger, "are the figures set
down in these railway time-tables?"

"Why," patiently explained the genial agent, "if it weren't for them
figures we'd have no way of findin' out how late the train is."

The American in the first-class carriage of an English train insisted
on smoking. An angry Englishman protested, and when about to appeal
to the guard the American got ahead of him with the remark: "Guard,
I think you will find that that gentleman is traveling with a
third-class ticket on him."

It proved to be true, and the sputtering Britisher was put out.

A spectator of the incident asked the American how he knew about the
ticket.

"Well," explained the composed stranger, "it was sticking out of his
pocket and I noticed that it was the same color as mine."

A new railroad through Louisiana strikes some of the towns about a
mile from the business center, so it is necessary to run a bus line.
A salesman stopping in one of the towns asked the old darky bus driver
about it:

"Say, uncle, why have they got the depot way down here?"

After a moment's hesitation the old darky replied: "Ah dunno, boss,
unless dey wanted to git it on de railroad."

Picking her way daintily through the locomotive plant, a young woman
visitor viewed the huge operations with awe. Finally, she turned to a
young man who was showing her through, and asked:

"What is that big thing over there?"

"That's a locomotive-boiler," he replied. She puckered her brows.

"And what do they boil locomotives for?"

"To make the locomotive tender," and the young man from the office
never smiled.

"What kind of a plant is the Virginia creeper?"

"It isn't a plant; it's