TRAVELLING ON THE MIXED TRAIN.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1191, 3 November 1882, Page 2

TRAVELLING ON THE MIXED TRAIN.

On some of the Western roads they attach a passenger car to a freight train and call it ' mixed.' It isn't in the order of things that such trains should travel very l'apidly, and sometimes there is considerable growling among the • traffic ' •Are wemosttheie, conductor?' asked a nervous man, for the hundredth time. ' Remember my wife is sick and I'm anxious.' * We'll get there on time,' replied the conductor, stolidly. Half an hour later the nervous man approached him again. * I guess she's dead now,' said he, mournfully, * but I'd give you a little something extra if you could manage to catch up with the funeral. Maybe she won't be so decomposed but what I could recognize her.' The conductor growled at him and the man subsided. c Conductor,' said he after an hour's silence. • Conductor, if the wind isn't dead ahead, I wish you would put on some steam. I'd like to see where tny wife is buried before the tombstone crumbles to pieces ! Put yourself in my place for a moment !' The conducter shook him off, and the man relapsed into profound melancholy. * I say, conducter,' said he, after a long pause, 'I've got a note coming due in three months. Can't you fix it so as to rattle along a little 1' * If you come near me again I'll knock you down,' snorted the conductor, savagely. The nervous man regarded him sadly and went to his seat. Two hours later the conductor saw him chattinggayly and laughing heartily with a brothor victim, and approached him. ' Don't feel so badly about your wife's death 1 ' Time heals all wounds,' sighed the nervous man.

•And you are not so particular about the note !" sneered the conduc ter.

*■ No. That's all right Don't worry, I've been figuring up, and I find that the note has outlawed since I spoke to you last — '■ raveller's Magazine.