She puckered her brows.
"And what do they boil locomotives for?"
"To make the locomotive tender," and the young man from the office
never smiled.
"What kind of a plant is the Virginia creeper?"
"It isn't a plant; it's a railroad."
The president of a certain railway in Kentucky which is only ten miles
long, was exchanging annual passes one year with officials of other
railways.
He enclosed an annual pass on his railway to Stuyvesant Fish, then
president of the Illinois Central Railway, for himself and family,
with the request that Fish reciprocate.
It seems that Fish had never heard of the Kentucky road, so he
instructed his secretary to look it up. As a result the pass was
returned with the following curt letter:
DEAR SIR:
I find that your railroad is only ten miles long, while my road is
eleven hundred miles long. I herewith return your pass made out in
favor of myself and family. Yours truly,
STUYVESANT FISH.
This was too much for the old Kentucky colonel, who made the following
notation on Fish's letter and sent it back:
"You go to hell--_my railroad is as_ WIDE _as yours_".
He received the Illinois Central pass by return mail.
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