, 1888-02-01
AN EXPRESS AGENTS CONFESSION.
His Scheme for Making Himself Solid with
the ComDauy-Funny Incidents.

His Scheme for Making Himself Solid With
the Company-Funny Incidents.
eff you won't give me away said a
middle aged man whom we will call
Brown, because Brown is not his name.
Il will tell you a little trick l once played
on an express company, for which | was
running as n messenger on n train not far
from here. 1t was in the days when they
never thought of sending out more than
one man with an express car, and it was
not deemed necessary to arm him, as
they now do their messengers. ! had
thought this scheme all out carefully and
tried to lOo!. at it in all its phases, so that
no unexpected evil result would come Of
it. One night we We're running along at
a rafting speed, by which / mean n speed
that made everything about the old shack
ling cars rattle till you couldn't hear
yourself think. The wind was blowing
very hard outside, and everybody on the
train was hugging about as tight as he
could to stove. l had things all my
own away. First l tool; n big coupling
pin and struck my end door in such n
m with it as to show several large
dents in it. Then l stepped outside,
locked the door, and with n tremendous
blow broke thclocE.
Il waited awhile, intending that if
anybody was attracted by the noise 10
say l had locked myself out and had
dropped my key Off the troiu. But no
body came. Then l closed the door and
quickly fired several shots from an old
pepper box pistol which l had loaded not
very heavily. One Of these l fired
through the rim of my hat. In another
moment ! was back in the passenger
coach, excited and calling for help. The
conductor, n brakeman and several OF
the passengers followed me. l was SO
excited l could hardly. speak, you know,
bat when they saw the broken and bat
tered door they OWNED what | did not
tell them. When my excitement had
subducd / managed to explain how two
masked men had broken in the door;
how / had called for help in vain; how ]
had fought them both off with the stove
poker; how they had shot at me several
timcs-l couldn't tell how many times
and how, after | had ~miraculously es-
capped their bullets and fought them Off,
calling for help rs loudly rs could. they
hal rushed TO the platform and probably
jumped of. OF course | let somebody
else find the bullet hole in my hat, and
then expressed surprise about it.
"NVcll, sir, it worked like a charm.
The next morning the papers had long
accounts Of it, and they all praised me
highly for keeping the robbers away from
the money chest. | was the lion of the
hour. The president of the company,
too, wrote a long personal letter to me,
and inclosed a check for $500. Here |
made another point by sending the
check back, and saying that l could not
accept such n check for having done
merely my plain duty. From that time
on | wns very solid with the company,
@ud coon had one of the best runs and
the best pay they could give me.
There were two funny things about
that case. Ono was that the agent at the
station we had last passed said he saw
two hard looking characters around
tho station just before the train
catno in and never saw them
again, while the conductor said no
such persons boarded tho train
as Legitimate passengers. Another fun
ny thing was that u gentleman who oc-
casionully sent large sums of money to
his agent at the other end of the road,
said he had tclcGraphed on that day that
he would send $12, 900 that night. 1t 30
happened, however. that he did nos send
il till tho ncxt night. He always thought
it was his money the robbers were
after. Chicago Times.