“Well, if yer don’t like it,” the conductor finally blurted out, “why in thunder don’t yer git out an’ walk?”

“I would,” Mr. Williams blandly replied, “but you see the committee doesn’t expect me until this train gets in.”

“We were bounding along,” said a recent traveler on a local South African single-line railway, “at the rate of about seven miles an hour, and the whole train was shaking terribly.  I expected every moment to see my bones protruding through my skin.  Passengers were rolling from one end of the car to the other.  I held on firmly to the arms of the seat.  Presently we settled down a bit quieter; at least, I could keep my hat on, and my teeth didn’t chatter.

“There was a quiet looking man opposite me.  I looked up with a ghastly smile, wishing to appear cheerful, and said: 

“‘We are going a bit smoother, I see.’

“‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we’re off the track now.’”

Three men were talking in rather a large way as to the excellent train service each had in his special locality:  one was from the west, one from New England, and the other from New York.  The former two had told of marvelous doings of trains, and it is distinctly “up” to the man from New York.

“Now in New York,” he said, “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.