A Close Call
Pat was a simple country yokel who had never strayed from the outskirts of his native village, and because he stood in a railway station for the first time of his life, his amazement was great.
The vastness of his surroundings completely dazzled him, but when the 3.30 express dashed through the station, that did it. He kept his eyes glued on the tunnel through which it had disappeared, staring after it as though some kind of miracle had happened. He remained like this for several minutes, much to the amusement of the onlookers, until at length an inquisitive porter asked him what he was staring at.
“Oi was just thinkun’,” he said, pulling himself together, “what a terribal smash there’d ‘a’ bin if he’d ‘a’ missed the ’ole!”
Breathless Visitor: Doctor, can you help me? My name is Jones——
Doctor: No, I’m sorry; I simply can’t do anything for that.
They were talking over the days that will never return, so they asserted; the days when there was no thirst in the land. But they had particular reference to the old state militia camp of long ago. For be it known, there was much taken to camp in those days that had little to do with military training, and it was carried in capacious jugs and big bottles. Everybody expected his city friends to run down to the camp, and be called upon to act as an assuager of thirst. “The year I have reference to,” said one of the old-timers, “was a notably wet one. The first night in camp everybody seemed to be bent on sampling what everybody else had brought down from the city. The result was that when the company of which I was a member was ordered to fall in the next morning to answer the roll-call there was a pretty wobbly line-up. We had a new sergeant—new to the routine of a camp, and after he had checked up he should have reported, ‘Sir, the company is present and accounted for.’ Instead he got rattled and said, ‘Sir, the company is full.’ Our captain, looking us over, sarcastically remarked, ‘I should say as much, full as a tick.’”