Morning journal and courier., 1881-01-24
Waking the Wrong Man.


How he-Thought VVoOdticI< William, the Miner, Rode on the Rail.
 The fact that every business has it's par tlcuiar lingo, which is a dead language to people of other professions, was never more clearly shown than in the following article by Bill Nye in the Chicago Tribune
 One night about half after 12, judge, I heard somebody step along to the window of my boudoir. Hearing it at that time of night l reckoned that something crooked was going on, so slid out of bed and got my Great Blood Searcher and Liver Purifier, with the new style of center fire and cartridge eiector, and slid up to the window, calculating to shove tonic into whoever it might be that was picknicking around my claim
 looked out so as to get a good idea of where wanted to sink on him, and then I thought before I mangled him I'd ask if he had any choice about which part of the vitals he wanted to preserve, so sings out to him:
 Look out below there, pard, for I'm go- ing to call the meeting to order in minute Just throw up your hands, if you please and have to mutilate youI Just show me about where you'd like to have the fatal wound, and be spry about it, too, because I've got my brief costume on, and the evening is chill !"
 He didn't understand me apparently for gurgling laugh welled up from below and the party sings back:
 '.Hillo, Fatty, is that you? Just lookin' to see if you'd fired up yet. You know was to come around and flag you if second seven was out We'll I've been down to the old mans to see what's on the board Three is two hours late and four is reported on time There's two sevens out and two sections of nine Skinney'n take out first seven and Shorty'n pull her with 1O2. It's you and me for second seven, with Timber Jim on front end and Frenchy to hold down the caboose First five IS wrong side up in a washout this cid lf llol1a I1II -l~.kzI runs 253 got his crown sheet caved in and teleseoped his headlight into the New Jerusa- lem. You know the little Swede that used to run extra for Old Hotbox on the emigrant for a while :? Well, he's fired on 258, and he's under three flats and coal oil tank, with break beam across his coupler and his system more or less relaxed. He's gone to the sweet subsequently, too. The rest of the boys are more or less demoralized and sidetracked for repairs. Now, you don't want to monkey rround much, for if you don't loom up like six bits and go out on the track, the old man'H give you time check and the Orien- tai Grand Bounce. You hear the mellow thrill of my bazoo."
 Then I slowly uncorked the Great Blood Purifier and, moving to the footlights where the silVery moonbeams could touch up my dazzling outlines. I said ''Pardner, I am pleased and gratiied to have met you. don't know the first ding busted thing you have said to me, but that's my misfortune I am plain miner, and my home is the digestive apparatus of the earth, but for pro- fessional melody of the chin you certainly take the cake. You also take the cake bas- ket and what cold pie there is on the dump. My name is Woodtick Williams I discover ed the Feverish Hornet up on Slippery FL lum. am proud to know you. Keep right on getting more and more familiar with your pro- fession, and bye and bye, when nobody can understand you, you will be promoted and respected, and you will at last be a sleeping car conductor and revel in the biggest mental calm and wide shoreless sea of intellectual stagnation that the world ever saw You will"
 But he was gone.
 Then I took the pillow-sham and wiped some of the pulverized crackers of the soles of my feet and went to bed in 8 large gob of gloom