Continuous Vaudeville by Will M. Cressy (best thriller novels to read txt) 📖

came to the berth where Lehman was trying to die as painlessly as possible. Upon arriving here she pulled the curtains aside, sat down on the edge of the berth, jabbed Lehman in the stomach with her elbow, and said loudly—

"Lay over!"

Lehman groaned, got one look at the female, then placed both feet in the small of her back and shot her out on to the floor, yelling loudly for the police.

[35]The car was in an uproar in an instant. Lehman was lying on his back, shouting "Police!" The female was screaming and hunting for her teeth. The conductor, the porter and the brakeman came running in to see whether it was a political discussion or just a murder. All the old lady could do was to mumble and hunt for her teeth. A man across the aisle swore that he saw Lehman stab the old lady with a bowie knife and throw her out into the aisle. The woman with the baby corroborated him, excepting that she thought he hit her with a piece of lead pipe.

By this time the old lady had found part of her Fletcherizing outfit and informed the congregation that she was neither struck nor stabbed; but that her husband in the berth there had certainly gone crazy.

There was a sympathetic chorus of "Oh!s" from the other passengers and the conductor jerked the curtains aside and asked Lehman what he meant by treating his wife this way.

"My wife?" screamed Lehman. "Why you —— —!$!—&—$&'o$—! Are you calling that old goat face my wife?"

"Sure that's your wife! Don't you suppose she knows?"

[36]"Well, don't you suppose I know! Do I look as if I would be the husband of anything that looks like that?"

The old lady now caught sight of Lehman for the first time.

"Why," she gasped; "that isn't my husband."

"I know darn well it ain't," said Lehman.

"Then what are you doing in my berth?" demanded the old lady.

"I am not in your berth!"

"You are in my berth!"

"Let's see your tickets," said the conductor.

"Here is mine," said the old lady. "Lower seven."

"And here is mine," said Lehman. "Lower seven."

The conductor looked at them closely; then stepped back under a lamp and looked at them closer. Then he handed the old lady's back to her. Then he turned to Lehman and, handing him his ticket, said,

"That is your yesterday's ticket from Kansas City to Chicago." Lehman looked at it dazed for a moment, then dressed and went up into the baggage car where he sat on a trunk all the way to New York.

[37]

E. M. Chase, a Norfolk (Va.) newspaper man, has for years been collecting newspaper clippings. The following are from some of his rural exchanges:

"The funeral was conducted at the home by the Rev. Mr. Browles and was afterwards buried in the old family burying ground."—Lebanon (Va.) News.

"Mrs. W. G. Neighbors is suffering with a rising corn on her foot."—Lebanon News.

"J. N. and Alfred Quillen were grafting in our neighborhood a few days last week."—Gate City Herald.

"Rev. W. C. Hoover preached an excellent sermon at the Union Chapel on last Sunday, his subject being entitled, 'I go to prepare a place for you.' Rev. Hoover and family then spent the rest of the day with Mr. Luther Armentrout and family."—Shenendore Valley Newmarket.

"The members of Moore's Store String Band met Saturday evening and rendered some very fine music, as follows: W. E. Lloyd, H. E. Weatherholtz, V. M. Weatherholtz, B. H. Golliday, C. S. Moore and 26 spectators."—Shenendore Valley Newmarket.

"Selone Sours is out after a severe cold.

[38]"Her daughter Emma Sours is still nursing her risings.

"Your scribe took a trip to Louray one day last week and purchased three sacks of fertilizer, one peck of clover seed and a half bushel of timothy seed.

"We remarked to our little son the other day that it was going to rain, as certain birds were singing, and he said, 'Pa, rain don't come out of a bird.'"—The Page News.

There is a sign over in Newark that somehow doesn't just strike my fancy; it reads—

P. Flem. Delicatessen.

A couple of young country chaps wandered into the lobby of Shea's Theater in Toronto and stood watching the people go up to the ticket-office window and purchase tickets; finally they got into the line, worked their way up to the window, then one of them laid down a two-dollar bill and said,

"Give me two tickets to Hamilton, Ontario."

"Irish Billie Carrol" was standing in the wings at the old Olympic Theater in Chicago, watching[39] the show. There was a chap on who was one of those men who can never let well enough alone; if he said or did anything that the audience laughed at, he would immediately say or do it right over again. Billie watched him awhile, then turned to his friend and said,

"All the trouble with him is, he always takes three bases on a single."

Barney Reiley, then with the Old Homestead Company, now the manager of a theater in Indianapolis, and I were walking down the street in Baltimore, when the sun, shining through a magnifying glass, set fire to an oculist's show window.

"By Golly," said Barney, "it's a lucky thing that didn't happen in the night, when there was nobody around."

Boston newspapers one week contained the following interesting announcement:

"At Keith's; Cressy and Dayne; Don't fail to bring the children to see the Trained Dogs."

[40]