TRAIN COMEDY.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14783, 13 October 1921, Page 6

TRAIN COMEDY.

TRAVEL IN AMERICA. One man who held the opinion that everything that annoyed. the Australian was due to the existence of State enterprises has come back from America a little less enthusiastic about private railways (says a Sydney paper). He wished to travel by a certain route from New York to San Francisco, and found that on the date required only one train left. He bought a ticket for 100 dollars, and presenting it to a guard was shown into a car, where he settled himself down. They had gone about twenty miles when another uniformed individual tame up. “Ten dahlers!” he announced. “What for 1 ?” asked the Australian. “You/re in the observation ear,” said the official between chews. “Ten dollars extra.” The traveller paid up, settled himself down again, and was starting to read, when another apparition appeared. “Five dahlers,” it demanded. “What for?” came again from the passenger. “Armchair seat,” was the reply; so out came the five dollars.

There was • an interval of ten minutes; then a third figure stood before him. “Thirty dahlers!” it murmured. “Thirty dollars!” yelled the foreigner. “What’s the thirty dollars for?” “This is a fast train,” explained the official. “Fast train cost thirty dollars extra.” “But,” protested the other, “it’s the only train.” “Sure!” Then how could I get to.,San Francisco?” -The official shifted his chewing gum. “Search me,” he observed in a tired way. “But I want my thirty dahlers!” The traveller paid up, grumbling, and proceeded to some meditations in melancholy, when he was again disturbed. “Eight dahlers,” said the newcomer. “Oh, cripes! What’s 'this for?” demanded the Australian. “War tax; eight dahlers war tax where the payment for transporta-, 'tion exceeds 125 dahlers.” “But I didn’t ask it to exceed; it was wished on me,” protested the victim.

This official smiled: “And I’m wishin’ the eight on you. -Cough up and look pleasant.’’. '