Mark Twain is credited with telling a good story about the meanest
corporation on earth. A man was working for this company, drilling holes
for blasting rock. He got to work on a place where there was a charge
that had not gone off. So, as he sat there quietly drilling away, there
was an explosion. He went up and up till he didn't look any bigger than
a hat; and then up and up till he didn't look any bigger than a walnut;
and then up and up till he went out of sight. Then he began to come down
and down till he looked as big as a walnut; and then down and down till
he looked as big as a hat; and then down and down till he sat right in
the place he had left, and went on drilling away as if nothing had
happened. He was absent just sixteen minutes and forty-two seconds--and
the company was so mean that they docked him for loss of time!
* * * * *
"Say, boy, say!" exclaimed a hot looking man with a big valise, "what's
the quickest way to the cars?" "Run!" yelled the boy as he dodged into
an alley. The man was very sorry the boy had so suddenly disappeared,
for he was so pleased with the kind information that if he could only
have come near enough to the boy, he would certainly have given him
something to remember him by.
* * * * *
When the preacher went into politics and suffered in his professional
character in consequence, he thought well to make an humble confession
to his conference to the effect that "the muddy pool of politics was the
rock on which I split."
He mixed his figures about as badly as a famous Irishman, Sir Boyle
Roche, who, suspecting the opposition of some sort of underhand
intentions, revealed his acuteness and his purpose to head off the enemy
in the following terms: "I smell a rat; I feel it in the air; and I will
nip it in the bud!"