ery badly.

I carefully avoided saying anything to that young man, because, I, too,
at times, had a rather bad impediment in my speech. It asserted itself
especially when I heard any one else stutter, or when the weather was
going to change; the men who knew me well said they could always
foretell a storm by my inability to talk. From my own experience,
however, I knew that when a stammerer heard another man stammer, he
imagined that he was being made fun of, and all the fight in him came at
once to the surface; and as this young man was about twice my size, I
did my best to keep away from him. But in a few moments he came over to
where I was and said to me, "A-a-a-sk 'DS' t-t-t-t-o s-s-s-end out
m-m-m-y r-r-ain c-c-c-c-oat on th-th-th-irteen." Every other word was
followed by a whistle.

My great help in stammering was to kick with my right foot. I knew what
was coming, and tried my best to avert the trouble. I drew in a long
breath and said: "Who sh-sh-sh-all I s-s-s-ay y-y-y-ou are?" and my
right foot was doing great execution. True to its barometrical
functions, my throat was predicting a storm. It came.

He looked at me for a second, grew red in the face, then catching me by
the collar, gave me a yank, that made me see forty stars, and said,
"B-b-b-last you! wh-wh-at d-d-o y-y-ou m-mean b-b-y m-mocking me? I'll
sm-sm-ash y-y-our b-b-b-lamed r-r-ed head.'"

Speech left me entirely then, and I am afraid I would have been most
beautifully thumped, had not Sanders, the trainmaster, come over and
stopped him. He called him "De Armand," and I then knew he was the
second trick despatcher. After many efforts De Armand told Sanders how I
had mocked him. Sanders didn't know me and the war clouds began to
gather again; but Johnson, the conductor of the wrecker, came over and
said, "Hold on there, De Armand, that kid ain't mocking you; he stammers
so bad at times that he kicks a hole in the floor. Why, I have seen him
start to say something to my engineer pulling out of Mankato, and he
would finish it just as the caboose went by, and we had some forty cars
in the train at that."

At this a smile broke over De Armand's face, and he grasped my hand and
said, "Excuse m-m-m-e k-k-id; but y-y-you k-k-know how it is
y-y-yourself." You may well believe that I did know.

One night, shortly after this, I was repeating an order to De Armand,
and in the middle of it I broke myself very badly. He opened his key,
and said, "Kick, yo