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Newspaper Page Text
" 'Slow her down, Joe !' I yelled at him, and he turned and cursed me and looked out on the line and began muttering something. There wasn't much danger, but I knew if Joe made the trestle at thirty miles he wouldn't last overnight as a driver for the Chesapeake & Elcelsior. Then, all at once, he staggCred back in to the cab and a second later the brakes were down and the train screeched and whined as it came to a halt fifty feet from where the trestle begins. '"'Joe!' 1 yelled, but his face was whiter than paper. 'Bill Jones," he said slowly, turning his eyes on mine, 'as I'm a man I saw Nellie on the line again!' "I looked out. I couldn't see nothingYou're dreaming, Joe,' I said. But he wouldn't touch the throttle again ; just stood rocking and moaning and muttering, Nel ly!' Then I thought maybe some other kid had got under the wheels. "A minute later the president was climbing along the foot board, with some of his guests. I wanted to save Joe. I told them he had seen something on the line. They looked, the whole party of them ,but they couldn't find nothing. When they come back I couldn't keep thejn from seeing him no longer, and one look was enough. Joe was blind drunk and in charge of the president's train. "Can you take her into Tap ham?" he asked me. I could, but at the words Joe was at me like a madman. It would have been as much as niy life was worth to try. And nobody wanted to tackle a drunken giant like Joe. So, as it was only half a mile, and the line would be clear for an hour to come, the whole party started to foot it into town. "Well, friend, the trestle was down. There was a piece twen ty yards long nipped clean out of the middle by the freshets. That's all. If Joe had run that train on to the trestle the whole party would have gone sheer into King dom Come. No, I'm not drawing any conclusions only, that's how it come that Joe quit drink ing and still drives his engine." (Copyright by W. G. Chapman.) ORIGINALITY f M I irk i I Comedian The people want something fresh. I'll have to get up a few new jokes. H'm, that one about the hen crossing the road I'd better change that one, to a duck.