New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1878-07-10
HALF AN HOUR OF AGONY,


MR.. THUMBLEDIRK's TERRIBLE PRED1cA-
MENT. ~
Yesterday afternoon Mr.. Jasper Thum-
bledirk, who is forty three years old and
unmarried, dashed into our sanctum and
evolved remark, the intensity of which
fairly matie our blood curdle. And when
he completed the remark, which was
neither very long nor remarkably COM
plicated, he picked up dictionary, hurled
it at the proof reader with great asperity,
and before that good natured and great
ly abused angel of the editorial staff
could recover from his emotion and get
his umbrella Mr.. Thumbledirk was gone.
He dashed out of the door, missed the
stairway and stepped down the elevator,
falling distance of three stories, but
he was too mad and excited to get hurt.
and we heard him rusnlng down the al
lev, yelling and swearing till he was out
of sight and hearing. As he is usually
very severe man, of habitual reserve,
very particular and guarded in his Ian
guage. we were amazed not only at his
words but for his excited manner af-
forded not the slightest explanation.
During the day, however, we became
possessed of certain facts which may give
the reader some clew to the causes of this
worthy and respectable citizens violent
and disrespectful manner and langua ge
It appears that about two o'clock in the
afternoon, Mr.. Thumbledirk dropped in
at the Union depot to ask some questions
relative to the arrival and departure Of
trains, and while passing through the la
dies waiting room, he was accosted by a
lady acquaintance who was going east on
the T. 2. g w. at half-past two. She
wished to go up town to make some little
purchases, but didn't want to take her
baby out in the rain. Would Mr..
Thumbledirk please hold it for her until
she came back? She wouldn't be gone
more than five minutes, and little Ernest
was just as good as an angel, and besides,
he was sound asleep.
Mr.. Thumbledirk, with strange fut-
ter of his feelings, lied, and said he would
only be too delighted. Then he took
the baby, and the ticket agent, who has
two, knew by the manner in which the
man took the baby and looked anxiously
from one end Of it to the other to see
which end the head was on, that he had
never handled human baby before in all
his life and promptly closed his window
to shut out the trouble that he knew was
On the eve of an eruption.
Mr.. Thumbledirk is very tall, digni-
fed man. He was rather annoyed as the
mother disappeared through the door to
observe that all the women in the waiting
room were 1ntently regarding him with
various expressions, curiosity predominant
ing. He sat down and bent his arms at
the elbows until they resembled in shape
two letters VS., with baby lying neck and
heels in the angle at the elbows, and he
looked, and he felt that he looked. like
the hideous pictures of Moloch in the old
Sunday school book.
Thumbledlrk felt keenly that he was an
object of curiosity and lily repressed
mlrth to the women around him. Now
dignifed man does not enjoy being a
laughing stock for any body, and it is
especially humiliating for him to feel that
he appears ridiculous in the eyes of
women. This feeling is intensified when
the man is a bachelor, and knows he is q
little awkward and i'll at ease in the pres
ence Of women, anyhow. So, as he gazed
upon the face of the quiet, sleeping In
FAINT, he made an insane effort to appear
perfectly easy, and to create the impress
sion that he was an old married man, and
the father Of twenty six children, he dis
engaged one arm, and chucked the baby
under the cha. About such chuck