Life — May 20, 1886 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

292 - LIFE: A YOUNG MATHEMATICIAN AND A BOBTAIL CAR. NEATLY dressed young man was seated in a bobtail car. He was a bank employee, and, holding only an inferior position as a clerk upon a small salary, he had had a good deal of experience at figures and was rapid and accu- rate at mental arithmetic. Then an old lady got in. Her countenance betokened a nature benevolent and kindly, but not acute or mathematical. Of course she did not have the correct change. This was not because she was old or old-fashioned or benevolent, but merely because she was a woman. At last she found a ten- cent piece, and the young man, who was not only smart but polite, not being a Teller at his bank, reached forward, touched his hat and took it. The old lady thanked him, and waited for him to open the slide, poke the driver in the back and get a little envelope of change in the orthodox bobtail car way. Instead of that he calmly put the ten-cent piece in his own pocket. Then he drew a five-cent piece from another pocket and put it in the box for the fare, and then produced still five cents more and returned it to the old lady. But the old lady did not understand the transaction, and the rest of the passengers looked puzzled. A moment more and she burst out violently and demanded what right he had to take her money and put it in his pocket, and the rest of the passengers said, “ That 's so," and looked indignant. He tried to explain that the transaction was purely unselfish on his part ; that by putting five cents in the box, returning five cents to the old lady and keeping her ten cents himself, every one got what he was entitled to, and he did not make anything himself. But the old lady, who knew the bob- tail car system only by rote, could not get over the fact that her ten-cent piece was in the young man’s pocket instead of the driver's box. Then an old gentleman with a big cane chivalrously took the lady's part, and said that the least the young man could do was to return her ten-cent piece to the old lady and let her do what she liked with it, and the rest of the passengers shouted, “ That's fair,” and commenced to get excited. The young man tried to make it plain that by this he would lose five cents himself, but with no success. Then the driver stopped the car, and finding what was the cause of the disturbance, he mashed the young man’s hat and threw him out into the street for stealing passengers’ fares. And the rest of the passengers growled, “Good! Served the sneak right!” MorRAL: This fictitious, but very possible, story teaches one never to do favors for nothing, and also not to ride in bobtail cars. CR H, A YOUNG INFIDEL. RS. BROWN (indignantly): Get up there, Johnny, and say your prayers; you must not go to bed like a beast. Little Johnny (coiling himself up comfortably in bed): That's all right, then, ma; it’s only the beasts that prey, you know. c HIS is the “ House ” That Jack built. This is the * stag,” With the crumpled hom, That ** bucked the Tiger ” From eve till morn And put his overcoat in pawn To bet on the ‘* House” That Jack built. These are the four united tres That ‘* saw" the ‘‘edge And “stood " the ‘‘ raise” And ‘lifted back” And "* blew the blaze” And “ hammered ”’ the ‘‘ House” That Jack built. This is the light But dainty food That nourished the strength Of the ‘* busted " dude Who “ staked his pile” And lost his ‘‘ bood’e” Through his trust In the “* House” That Jack built. comicbooks.com