for the price and it was preferred because it never
struck below the belt," I added. "Her occasional verse was a trifle
worse. Don't you know 'The Pain Killer' used to be full of it when
advertisements ran low?"

"I always liked that paper in your town," said Jim--"for shaving."

Our paper was called "The Pain Killer" down in Jerusalem Corners and
other distant places when it was so full of stomach-bitters
advertisements that the news of the week had to be left out for a couple
of issues and seemed such ridiculous reading when it appeared,
especially to the sick who were then out ploughing and the parents of
the babies that had been hinted about some time before and were then
swaddled, exercising with the colic and ready to have their names in
print as among those present.

Jim had an important engagement and dressed with some care to meet what
was evidently a social demand of consequence. I had observed of late
that clothes were playing a greater part in his society drama. It seemed
to me he must be getting close to a leading lady.

The conversation ended with a "Good-night" from Jim and he passed out
leaving me to ponder alone. The hermits of the country have time to
consider its welfare, so I went to reading my magazines to gather more
inspiration for denouncing the United States Senate and the rest of the
rascals.

The railroads are to blame. I hold them responsible, for one of them
brought me down to New York ten years ago on a ten-dollar excursion
ticket, and an old Sunday-school teacher of mine who had seen all he
could pay for here wanted to get back, so he made me an offer of five
dollars for the return half, and after practicing my handwriting for a
spell he got so accurate he could write my name about as well as I
could, in case the conductor cornered him and wanted to throw him off
into the Black River. He landed home all right and nobody was the wiser.
Would that all my trickery had died as gentle a death! But I see now
that fooling with another fellow's courtship and cheating a railroad are
different, because the railroad is everybody's business and the other is
supposed to be a private affair. Cheating a railroad used to be no crime
till they got to cheating us so hard. I remember up in Oswegatchie
County that all of my folks in the County Clerk's office held passes and
seldom complained about the railroad robbing us of our land, so that
five dollars taken contrary to the contract on the ticket did