Let us now be seated while we study Human Nature a little, and see if
it is not a fact that when you hand a good Job and a bunch of Expense
Money to a beadle who has never had either, you are liable to put
a crimp in his psychology and enlarge his ego until he can’t find
anything to fit it.
Take for illusample: When Ezekiel went from the Office to the Railway
Station to catch his train, he felt so goshdanged good that he could
have punched a hole through a limousine window for sheer ebullience of
spirit.
But when he found that his train was late, he went up to the ticket
window and told Mr. Vanderbilt just what he thought of the whole ratty
System. And he told it so that everybody around the room could hear it
and marvel at his courage and knowledge of railroading. He spoke as in
behalf of an injured constituency.
When he boarded his train and got the hang of things, he commanded the
porter to raise a window here and lower a shade there, and he ignored
the cuspidor entirely every time he took a chew.
When he arrived at his metropolitan destination he gave the owner of
the yellow Bus a beautiful bawl for not helping him with his little
belly-leather suit-case, and on the way up to the hotel he complained
to his fellow passengers about the rickety old boat, and wondered why
there were no taxicabs in the dump.
When he was assigned to his room at the Luke’s Rock Hotel he kicked
like a trapped rabbit because it was a walk-up. And when he saw the
room he threw up both good old farm-knotted hands and said it wouldn’t
do a-tall. They gave him another room and he went over and felt the
bed and said the mattress was about as soft and responsive as the Town
Scales.
When he came down for breakfast next morning and the Proprietor with
his little strive-to-please face asked him how he had slept, he growled
back “Rotten!” and lumbered into the dining room.
When the food came on, he complained that the butter was rancid, the
rolls were doughy, the coffee was like turpentine, the eggs were
boiled 3-3/4 minutes instead of 3-5/8 minutes as ordered, and the
service was fierce.
A silent, contended-looking man sat opposite Ezekiel. He thanked the
waitress with the thin Face and receding Future every time she brought
him anything, and he seemed to relish the little meal as much as
anybody could with a 72-centimetre dub sitting opposite.
Finally Ezekiel addressed the silent man. “This Road Life is certainly
fierce, ain’t it?”, he said, pushing back his plate and yanking his
napkin from under his red chin.
“It is,” replied the Man. “But it wouldn’t be, if four-flushers like
you would keep off it.” Zeek stared, with jaws ajar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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