Railroads -- United States -- Design and construction -- Fiction; Western stories
“It was pretty plain that he wasn’t going to say anything. There was
something about the way he looked at us and especially about that
grin that started me thinking. I decided on bluff number two. I took
out my pass case, opened it, and spread out annual passes on the Great
Windy, the Erie, the South-eastern, and the Lake Shore. My name was
written on all of them, H. L. Tiffany, Pittsburg. The minute the
captain saw them he looked queer, and I turned to Charlie and told him
to get out his passes, which he did. For a minute the captain couldn’t
say anything; then he turned on those three officers, and you ought to
have heard what he said to them--gave ’em the whole forty-two degrees
right there, concentrated.
“‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said to us, when he’d told the officer all that
was on his mind, ‘this is pretty stupid business. I’m very sorry we’ve
put you to this trouble, and I can tell you that if there is anything
I can do to make it right, I’ll be more than glad to do it.’
“Well, there wasn’t anything in particular that I wanted just then
except to get out of Buffalo quick. But I did stop to gratify my
curiosity.
“‘Would you mind telling me, Captain,’ said I, ‘who you took us for?’
“The captain looked queer again, then he said, solemn, ‘We took you
for body snatchers.’
“‘Body snatchers!’ I looked at Charlie, and Charlie, who was beginning
to recover, looked at me.
“‘You see,’ the captain went on, ‘there’s an old building out there by
the yard, and some young surgeons and medical students have been using
it nights to cut up people in, and when the boys saw two well-dressed
young fellows hanging around there in the middle of the night, they
didn’t stop to think twice. I’m very sorry, indeed. I’ll send two of
these men over to escort you to your hotel, with your permission.’
“That didn’t please me very much, but I couldn’t decline. So we
started out, Charlie and I and the two coppers. But instead of going
to the Swift House I steered them into the Mansion House, and
dampened things up a bit. Then I got three boxes of cigars, Havana
imported. I gave one to each of the officers, and on the bottom of the
third I wrote, in pencil, ‘To the Captain, with the compliments of H.
L. Tiffany, of the A. & G. W., Pittsburg, Pa.’ I thought he might have
reason to be interested when he got his next morning’s paper in
knowing just who we were. The coppers went back, tickled to death, and
Charlie and I got out into the street.
“‘Well, Hen,’ said he, very quiet, ‘what are you going to do next?’
“‘You can do what you like, Charlie,’ I said, ‘but I’m going to take
the morning three o’clock on the Michigan Central for Toronto.’ And
Charlie, he thought maybe he’d go with me.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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