"HE FIXED HIM WITH HIS GLITTERING EYE."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 6936, 9 February 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

"HE FIXED HIM WITH HIS GLITTERING EYE."

It Was in a Madison-street car, and every seat was occupied, when a sickly-looking woman entered with her babe. " Room for the lady ; make way there, please," said the conductor, and the crowded passengers pulled backward on the straps to let her into the aisle. Only one man was sitting, and all the other men, and the ladies, top, looked aa if they expected/him to rise. But he didn't— not just then. Be was a big, stout fellow, in a great, heavy' coat, &nd he had a goodnatured snub nose and a dimple in his fat chin, and all the other passengers voted him a very selfish fellow, not half so good-natured as he looked. After a -tfhile they began making uncomplimentary remarks, but he didn't appear to notice them, aud he continued to take as much comfort ae circumstances would permit. Just as the men on the platform had grown so indignant, that one or two advised the conductor to "throw him out," a cheery, little, nervous man, with a long, black moustache, and a Ben Butler eye, jumped on the car. " What's the matter?" ho briskly inquired. And then, on being informed, he slapped his hand on a sohoolboy's shouldor and triumphantly exclaimed, " Gentlemen, I'll fix him. Let me set my eye on him, and if he stands it he's more than mortal. It's a glass eye and it's too big for the place it's in, but 1 won't have no other, not me. Many'e the time I got a seat in a railroad train all on account of this eye, and if you j,ust watoh me you'll see how I do it." He crowded in until he got beside the fat man. Then he fixed his awful eye. It wan enough to make an ordinary man nervoue, so big and staring and glassy was it. But the fat man didn't move. He winked regularly and sjniled serapbically, and, indeed, seemed to enjoy returning the dead eye's stare. The glass-eyed man tried numerous dodges. He closed hie good eye and opened the other very wide. He poked his head down to within a few inches of tho nose of the fat man while pretending to pick up an advertising card. He got red in the face and excited, and made some of the more recent additions to the passenger list think him an escaped lunatic, but without effect upon the dimpled personation of selfishness. ' Some of the spectators laughed, and then the glass-eyed man got mad. "By the great high jinke," he began, but he stopped, for he notioed a laughing lady pull the fat man's sleeve. The fat man arose and, followed her out as if in need of help. "He is my husband," said the lady, as ehe passed the astonished fiend, " and he's a little deaf and entirely blind." "I'll never doit no more," eaid the fiend. "Then he swore he'd buy a green shade."