The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1880-10-01
THE QUAKER DETECTIVE.

We were five passengers in all-two
ladies on the back seat, and middle
aged gentleman and a Quaker on the
middle, and myself on the front.
The two ladies might have been
mother and daughter, aunt and niece,
governess and charge, or might have
sustained any other relationship which
make 1t proper for two ladies to travel
together unattended.
The middlc-aged gentleman was
sprightly and talkative. He soon
struck up an acquaintance with the
ladies, toward whom in his zeal to do,
he rather overdid, the agreeable-bow-
ing and chattering over his shoulder
in a very painfully suggestive, at his
time of life, Of "crick" in the tick.
He was evidently gay Lothario.
The Quaker wore the uniform OF his
sect. and confined his speech. As MANY a
parliamentarian would save his credit
by doing, to simply "yeas and mays" :"
AS for myself make it an invariable
rule of the road to be merely looker-
on and listen.
Toward evening l was aroused from
one Of those reveries into which a
young man, without being poet or a
lover, will sometimes fall, by an abrupt
query from the talkative gentleman:
Are you armed, SIR"
IL am not" / answered, astonished,
no doubt visibly, at the question.
am sorry to hear it," he replied,
"for before reaching our next stopping
place 1t will be several hours in the
night, and we must pass over a portion
of the road on which more than one
robbery is reported to have been COM
mitted."
The ladies turned pale, but the
stranger did his best to reassure them.
mot that think there is the slight
est danger at present." he resumed;
"only when one is responsible for the
safety of the ladies, you know, such
thing as a pistol in reach would ma
:erially add TO ones confidence"
Your principles, my friend" ad-
dressing the Quaker, 81 presume are as
much opposed TO carrying as TO using
carnal weapons"
YEA" was the response.
"Have the Williams murdered any of
their victimsP" the elderly lady nerv-
ously inquired.
Cor have they contented themselves
with with-plundering thempr added
the younger, in a timorous voice.
Decidedly the latter" the amiable
gentleman fastened TO give assurance;
"and we are none ofus prepared to offer
resistance in case OF attack, 80 nothing
worse than robbery can possibly befall
U.s."
Then, after blaming his thoughtles
ness In having unconsciously introduced
a disagreeable subject, the gentleman
quito excelled himself in efforts to raise
the spirits of the company, and had sue
ceedod 30 well by the time night had
set in that all had quite forgotten or re-
membered their fears to laugh at them.
Our genial companion fairly talked
himself hoarse; perceiving which he
took from his pocket box of newly
invented "cough candy" and, after
passing it to the ladies, he helped him
self to the balance and tossed the paper
out of the window.
He was in the midst of q high en-
comium on the new nostrum, more than
half the efficacy of which, he insisted,
depended on its being taken by suction,
when a shrill whistle was heard, and
almost Immediately the coach stopped,
while two faces, hideously blackened,
presented themselves one at each win
dow.
"Sorry to trouble you," said the man
on the right, acknowledging with bow
two ladylike screams from the back
eat: "but business is business and
ours will soon be over If things go
smoothly"
"0l course, gentlemen, you willspare,
as far as may be consistent with your
dlsagreeable duty, the feeling Of these
ladies'" appealed the polite passenger,
In bis blandest manner.
"Ohl certainly; they shall be first at