Papas hold up their
little Johnnys to the car-windows to be kissed. _Puff----Puff!_ People
shake hands from the platform to the cars, walking along by their side.
_Puff--puff--puff!_ Now, then, Ma'am! pass out that tumbler pretty
spry, out of which you have been swallowing that eternal "drink o'
wotter," to which the human female of a certain social grade is so
odiously addicted. _Puff, puff, puff, puff!_ Too late, old gentleman
I unless you can do a mile in a good deal less than three minutes,
carrying weight, in the shape of a valise in one hand and a carpet-bag
in the other. That's the way with anything that's got any freight to
carry. It's slow when it sets out;--but steam is steam,--and what's bred
in the boiler will show in the driving-wheel, sooner or later.
If I had to _make up_ a story, now, it would be a very different matter.
I could never conceive how some of those romancers go to work, in cold
blood, to draw, out of what they call their imagination, a parcel of
impossible events and absurd characters. That is not my trouble; for I
have come into relation with a series of persons and events which will
save me the pains of drawing on my invention, in case I shall see fit to
follow the counsel of my too partial friends.
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