OFFICE BOY—­“I don’t have to; I quit on Saturday.”—­Satire.

James J. Hill, the Railway King, told the following amusing incident that happened on one of his roads: 

“One of our division superintendents had received numerous complaints that freight trains were in the habit of stopping on a grade crossing in a certain small town, thereby blocking travel for long periods.  He issued orders, but still the complaints came in.  Finally he decided to investigate personally.

“A short man in size and very excitable, he went down to the crossing, and, sure enough, there stood, in defiance of his orders, a long freight train, anchored squarely across it.  A brakeman who didn’t know him by sight sat complacently on the top of the car.

“‘Move that train on!’ sputtered the little ‘super.’  ’Get it off the crossing so people can pass.  Move on, I say!’

“The brakeman surveyed the tempestuous little man from head to foot.  ‘You go to the deuce, you little shrimp,’ he replied.  ’You’re small enough to crawl under.’”

ENEMIES

An old man who had led a sinful life was dying, and his wife sent for a near-by preacher to pray with him.

The preacher spent some time praying and talking, and finally the old man said:  “What do you want me to do, Parson?”

“Renounce the Devil, renounce the Devil,” replied the preacher.

“Well, but, Parson,” protested the dying man, “I ain’t in position to make any enemies.”

It is better to decide a difference between enemies than friends, for one of our friends will certainly become an enemy and one of our enemies a friend.—­Bias.

  The world is large when its weary leagues
    two loving hearts divide;
  But the world is small when your enemy is
    loose on the other side.

  —­John Boyle O’Reilly.

ENGLAND

See Great Britain.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

A popular hotel in Rome has a sign in the elevator reading:  “Please do not touch the Lift at your own risk.”

The class at Heidelberg was studying English conjugations, and each verb considered was used in a model sentence, so that the students would gain the benefit of pronouncing the connected series of words, as well as learning the varying forms of the verb.  This morning it was the verb “to have” in the sentence, “I have a gold mine.”

Herr Schmitz was called to his feet by Professor Wulff.

“Conjugate ‘do haff’ in der sentence, ’I haff a golt mine,” the professor ordered.

“I haff a golt mine, du hast a golt dein, he hass a golt hiss.  Ve, you or dey haff a golt ours, yours or deirs, as de case may be.”

Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language.—­Noah Webster.