HOW HE ROUNDED THE LAKE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4910, 16 December 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW HE ROUNDED THE LAKE.

(From the Chicago Journal.) , He .was a-tramp;' bound Chicagoward, and as he boarded the couplers at the rear of an incoming engine, just across the line in Indiana, one recent dark and chilly night, he had faith to believe that he had a “soft thing” of it for a cheap ride. ■ But the. conductor, with his eagle eye and railway lantern, soon espied the moneyless passenger on his uhcushioned and comfortless seat. Did he order him off ? No. He had a deeper plot. He let him remain, while on and on wont the train, from station to station, until it reached a great tank, where the engines stop to “water up.” “Now for him,” grinned the heartless conductor, as ha passed to the front. “Now for him,” he maliciously continued, as he grasped the water-trough from the fireman’s hands, and directed it over the back end of the engine. “ Now for him,” he fiendishly grunted, as he heard a Noah’s deluge pouring over the head and down the back of the luckless tramp. : All grew still, and the conductor ordered his train on its way, convinced that he had drowned the tramp, or at least flooded him so far away that he could never get back again. Bu£ when that conductor drove ■ into the depot in the early morning there was a surprise in store for him. , “Bo you the conductor ? ” inquired a shivering voice at his elbow, as he stepped on the platform. “ Yes,” said; he,, looking around and gazing upon a bedraggled and cinder-covered man. “ Then I want ter ask yer why yer don’t run around, the end of. the lake in cornin’ inter town f ” .. “ I do,” said the conductor, “ Yer do ? exclaimed the njan. “ Certainly,” was the reply. “ Wal, I gosh ! ’’ muttered the stranger in a bewildered tone, “’blest if I didn’t think yer swum through the lake ! ” Then the conductor knew that his tramp still lived and was waterproof.