Page:Ballantyne--The Battery and the Boiler.djvu/230

 they jumps off an' ranges 'temselves in a row. Sometimes, in coorse, they spells wrong, like bad schoolboys, and then they've to be walloped an' set right."

"Hold your noise, Slagg, an' let your betters speak," returned Stumps.

"Well, if they don't exactly do that," said Sam Shipton, "there are people who think they can do things even more difficult. I remember once, when I was clerk at a country railroad station and had to work the telegraph, an old woman came into the ticket office in a state of wild despair. She was about the size and shape of Meerta there, but with about an inch and a half more nose, and two or three ounces less brain.

What 's wrong, madam?' I asked, feeling quite sorry for the poor old thing.

Oh! sir,' said she, clasping her hands, 'I 've bin an' left my passel,—a brown paper one it was,—on the seat at the last station, an' there was a babby's muffler in it—the sweetest thing as ever was—an' f-fi' pun t-ten, on'y one sh-shillin' was b-bad—boo-hoo!'

"She broke down entirely at this point, so, said I, 'Madam, make your mind quite easy, sit down, and I 'll telegraph at once;' so I telegraphed, and got a reply back immediately that the parcel had been found all right, and would be sent on as soon as