"Where do you go?" asked the agent of a quiet old gentleman sitting before me, who had previously given up his checks.
"Yes, exactly; that's my name," replied the old gentleman.
"Where do you go?" again asked the agent in a somewhat louder tone.
"Exactly, I told you so." And the old gentleman put a pocket handkerchief over his face as a preliminary to sleep.
"Well, I never," exclaimed the agent, who returned to the charge. "I asked you where you wanted to go?"
"Confound your name!" muttered the agent. "You're either deaf or insane, and I guess you're deaf." So putting his mouth to the old gentleman's ear, he shouted, "Where--do--you--want--to--go?"
"O, really, the ---- House," was the mild answer to a question that so startled everybody else as to cause one man to jump up and cry, "Fire!" very much to the gratification of his fellow-passengers. There is nothing more pleasing to human beings than to see somebody else make himself ridiculous, and the amusement extracted from the contemplation of that car-load of men and women almost compensated me for the previous experience.
I have since traveled in the far West, but have never looked upon the counterpart of that New England hotel.
Early in the afternoon of the same day, Mr. Holliday came home bearing a large package in his arms. Not only seldom, but rarely, did anything come into the Holliday homestead that did not afford the head of the family a text for sermonic instruction, if not, indeed, rational discourse. Depositing the package upon a hall table, he called to his son in a mandatory manner:
Rollo approached, but started with reluctant steps. He became reminiscently aware as he hastily reviewed the events of the day, that in carrying out one or two measures for the good of the house, he had laid himself open to an investigation by a strictly partisan committee, and the possibility of such an inquiry, with its subsequent report, grieved him. However, he hoped for the worst, so that in any event he would not be disagreeably disappointed, and came running to his father, calling "Yes, sir!" in his cheeriest tones.
This is the correct form in which to meet any possible adversity which is not yet in sight. Because, if it should not meet you, you are happy anyhow, and if it should meet you, you have been happy before the collision. See?