Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: The sweetest picture of family contentment I have ever
witnessed.]
SKIDDOO!
BY HUGH McHUGH
(George V. Hobart)
AUTHOR OF
"JOHN HENRY," "DOWN THE LINE WITH JOHN HENRY," "IT'S UP TO YOU," "BACK
TO THE WOODS," "OUT FOR THE COIN," "I NEED THE MONEY," "I'M FROM
MISSOURI," "YOU CAN SEARCH ME," "GET NEXT," ETC.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GORDON H. GRANT
TORONTO
THE COPP, CLARK CO., LTD.
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1906,
BY G. W. DILLINGHAM Co.
ISSUED MARCH, 1906.
All rights strictly reserved, and any infringement of copyright will be
dealt with according to law.
SKIDDOO!
CONTENTS
JOHN HENRY ON UPPER BERTHS
JOHN HENRY ON COOKS
JOHN HENRY ON PATRIOTISM
JOHN HENRY ON MOSQUITOES
JOHN HENRY ON STREET CAR ETIQUETTE
JOHN HENRY ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS
JOHN HENRY ON CHAFING DISHES
ILLUSTRATIONS
The sweetest picture of family contentment I have
ever witnessed . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
I made a short prayer and concluded to fall out
Ollie was half Swede and the rest of her was deaf
With the fire-crackers cheering him on
"Ping-ding-a-zing-a-boom!" [missing from book]
"Naw, we don't take no transfers, needer!"
To the five hundred and seventy-five thousands friends who have made
this series of John Henry books a success beyond all dreaming, my
deepest gratitude.
To the Good Fellows of the Press who have looked upon John Henry with
the Eye of Understanding, and who, realizing that these books were
never intended to be more than an humble form of entertainment, have
written thereof with the Pen of Patience, I say thank you, with all my
heart.
To the Busy Little Bunch of Newspaper Knockers who have so assiduously
plied hammer and harpoon since this series began, I want to say that
575,000 John Henry books were sold up to March 1st, 1906.
There is your answer, O Beloved of the Short Arm Jab!
Ponder thereon, ye Little Brothers of the Knock-Out Drops, Five Hundred
and Seventy-five Thousand books sold (and mine is twelve per cent. of
the gross) while you are STILL drawing your little $18 per and STILL
singing second tenor in the Anvil Chorus.
Now O, sweet-scented Companions of the Crimp, and Brethren of the
Double-Cross, ask your weazened little souls what's the use?
Skiddoo for yours!
G. V. H.
SKIDDOO
CHAPTER I
JOHN HENRY ON UPPER BERTHS
I was down on the card to make a quick jump to Pittsburg a few nights
ago, and I'm a lemon if I didn't draw an upper berth in the sleeping
car thing!
Say! I'll be one of a party of six to go before Congress and tell all
I know about an upper berth.
And I'd like to tell it right now while I'm good and hot around the
collar.
The upper berth in a sleeping car is the same relation to comfort that
a carpet tack is to a bare foot.
As a place to tie up a small bundle of sleep a boiler factory has it
beat to a whimper.
Strong men weep every time the ticket agent says, "Nothing left but an
upper," and lovely women have hysterics and begin to make faces at the
general public when the colored porter points up in the air and says,
"Madam, your eagle's nest is ready far up the mountain side."
The sleeping car I butted into a few nights ago was crowded from the
cellar to the attic and everybody present bumped into everybody else,
and when they weren't bumping into each other they were over in a
corner somewhere biting their nails.
While the porter was cooking up my attack of insomnia I went out in the
smoking-room to drown my sorrow, but I found such a bunch of sorrow
killers out there ahead of me that I had to hold the comb and brush in
my lap and sit up on the towel rack while I took a little smoke.
Did you ever notice on your travels that peculiar hog on the train who
pays two dollars for a berth and always displaces eight dollars' worth
of space in the smoking car?
If he would bite the end of a piece of rope and light up occasionally
it wouldn't be so bad, but nix on the smoke for him.
He simply sits there with a face like a fish and keeps George Nicotine
and all the real rag burners from enjoying a smoke.
If ever a statue is needed of the patriot Buttinski I would suggest a
model in the person of the smokeless smoker who always travels in the
smoking-car.
Two busy gazabes were discussing politics when I squeezed into the
smoker on this particular occasion, and I judge they both had lower
berths, otherwise their minds would have been busy with dark and
personal fears of the future.
"Well," exclaimed the gabby one from Kansas City, "what _is_ politics?
Well, what is it?"
"Politics," replied Wise Willie from Providence, "politics is where we
get it--sometimes in the bank, sometimes in the neck!"
Everybody present peeled the cover off a loud laugh and the smokeless
hog at the window stole four inches extra space so that he could shake
more when he giggled.
"Well," resumed the inquisitive person from Kansas City, "what is a
politician? Do you know? Eh, well, what is a politician?"
"A politician," replied the fat man from Providence, "a politician is
the reason we have so much politics."
Much applause left the hands of those present, and the smokeless hog
turned sideways so that he could make the others more uncomfortable.
"Perhaps," insinuated gabby Jim from Kansas City, "perhaps you know
what a statesman is, eh?"
"A statesman is a politician in good luck," was the come-back from our
fat friend from Providence, and in the enthusiasm which followed the
smokeless hog found out there was no buffet car on the train, so he
offered to buy the drinks.
"Don't you believe that all men are born equal?" inquired the Kansas
Cityite.
"Yes, but some of them have pull enough to get over it," responded the
Providence philosopher, whereupon the smokeless hog by the window took
out a flask and began to dampen his conscience.
Just then the towel rack fell with a crash, and after I picked up the
comb and the brush and myself I decided to retire to my bracket on the
wall and try to sleep.
When I left the smoker the smokeless hog was occupying two and a half
seats and was now busy breathing in some second-hand cigarette smoke
which nobody seemed to care for.
"How do I reach my Alpine bungalow?" I said to the porter, whereupon he
laughed teethfully and hit me on the shins with a step-ladder.
The spectacular gent who occupied the star chamber beneath my garret
was sleeping as noisily as possible, and when I started up the
step-ladder he began to render Mendelssohn's obligato for the trombone
in the key of G.
Above the roar of the train from away off in lower No. 2 faintly I
could hear an answering bugle call.
I climbed up prepared for the worst and in the twinkling of an eye the
porter removed the stepladder and there I was, sitting on the perilous
edge of my pantry shelf with nothing to comfort me save the exhaust of
a professional snorer.
After about five minutes devoted to a parade of all my sins I began to
try to extract my personality from my coat, but when I pushed my arm up
in the air to get the sleeve loose my knuckles struck the hard-wood
finish and I fell backward on the cast-iron pillow, breathing hoarsely
like a busy jack rabbit.
I waited about ten minutes while my brain was bobbing back and forth
with the excitement of running fifty miles an hour over a careless part
of the country, and then I cautiously tried to approach my shoe laces.
Say! if you're a man and you weigh in the neighborhood of 225 pounds,
most of which is in the region of the equator, you will appreciate what
it means to lie on your back in an upper berth and try to get your
shoes off.
And this goes double for the man who weighs more than 225 pounds.
Every time I reached for my feet to get my shoes off I bumped my head
off, and the more I bumped my head off the less I got my shoes off, and
the less I got my shoes off the more I seemed to bump my head off, so I
decided that in order to keep my head on I had better keep my shoes on
also.
Then I tried to divorce my suspenders from my shoulders, but just as I
got the suspenders half way over my head I struck my crazy bone on the
rafters, and there I was, suspendered between Heaven and earth, but
praying with all my heart for a bottle of arnica.
_Then_ I decided to sleep as nature made me, with all my clothes on,
including my rubbers.
So I stretched out, but just then the train struck a curve and I went
up in the air till the ceiling hit me, and then I bounced over to the
edge of the precipice and hung there, trembling on the verge.
Below me all was dark and gloomy, and only by the hoarse groans of the
snorers could I tell that the Pullman Company was still making money.
Luck was with me, however, for just then the train struck an in-shoot
curve which pushed me to the wall, and I bumped my head so completely
that I fell asleep.
When I woke up a small package of daylight was peeping into the car, so
I decided to descend from my cupboard shelf at once.
I peeped out through the aluminum curtains, but there was no sign of
the colored porter and the step-ladder was invisible to the naked eye.
The car was peaceful now with the exception of a gent in lower No. 4,
who had a strangle hold on a Beethoven sonata and was beating the
cadenza out of it.
I made a short prayer and concluded to fall out, but just then one of
my feet rested on something solid, so I put both feet on it and began
to step down.
[Illustration: I made a short prayer and concluded to fall out.]
Alas, however, the moment I put my weight on it my stepping-stone gave
way and I fell overboard with a splash.
"How dare you put your feet on my head?" yelled the man on the ground
floor of my bedroom.
"Excuse me! it felt like something wooden," I whispered, while I dashed
madly for the smoker.
From that day to this I have never been able to look a Pullman car in
the face, and whenever anybody mentions an upper berth to me I lose my
presence of mind and get peevish.
If you have ever been there yourself I know you don't blame me!
Do you?