The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-22
SMILING TO ONESELF.

| across the aisle, whose face continually 1 lights up with a happy smile and who 1 every now and then breaks out in a half-audible little laugh. No one is sit | ting beside him, telling him amusing stories or ticking him with facetious
 jests. He is no fool either, laughing for
 want of thought. One reads in his mo- | bile, expressive face that he is a man of
 exceptional intelligence and character. | But what contrast he offers to the vacant or set or careworn or bored ] looks of the other passengers, anxious only to have the confounded railway l ride over Evidently he does not care | how long it lasts. Why should he? | Plainly he is in the best of company | his own company. There he sits all the weary miles from Nashua to Boston,
 smiling away as pensively as though he
 were Cervantes telling himself for the | first time the whole delicious story of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza Hang him." exclaims some irate pas- senger, ''is the fellow so conceited over the infatuated idea that he is a whole library inside of Shakespeare and Mark Twain as to flatter himself that he stands in no human need of a newspa- per, paper bag of popcorn, a stick of
 chewing gum, or of joining anybody
 else in a rubber of whist?"
 Now there is no use in getting angry over such a man. That were only to betray spite and envy that one has such a dull and stupid time in one's
 own company, and finds ones self SO dreary bore that a column of adver- tisements of scraps or shoe-tags would be q positive relief from ones own
 thoughts. Far better would it be to
 say: T wonder whether the fellow
 could be induced to give a body lessons?
 He must have some secret 1t would be
 worth a round sum to find out What
 makes me restless as a flea or irritate
 as mosquito affords him positive de-
 light Evidently he likes to talk to
 himself and to tell himself all sorts of
 nice things. I never tell myself any
 nice things, at any rate for more than
 half a minute at a time. One thing is
 certain. The railway company ought
 to supply him with free yearly season
 tickets from Nashua to Boston and
 back, so as to keep him always on the
 road to stimulate the rest of the pas
 sengers to try to guess his conundrum."
 When one reflects how many thou
 sands of people are travelling to and
 fro every day from no end of towns to
 their places of business in Boston, and
 how few of them ever impress their fel-
 low passengers with over-addiction to
 internal smiling, but, on the contrary,
 to settled habits of yawning, beating
 tattoos with their knuckles, and even
 over-indulgence in popcorn and pro-
 fanity, it will hardly be wondered at
 that-in the interest of this restless,
 shuttle-darting element of our popula-
 ton, which Is wedving the fabric of our
 business prosperity--the Boston Herald should have resolved to send one of it's most sagacious and philosophically- minded reporters to try to coax an in- terview out of a prominent specimen of this internally smiling species of the genus homo. A marked instance of it. whose name, however, is, for reasons of delicacy, suppressed been in- dicated, the reporter duly boarded his train, made an excuse for sitting down beside the man, and watched his chance.
 For some time the proposed inter- viewer said never a word though be- traying all the while that he was in very restless and uneasy frame of mind. | He crossed and recrossed his legs, shuf- l fled his feet, bought and consumed | three several paper bags of popcorn, and, at intervals, yawned portentiously. l Excuse me sir, excuse mel" he finally l began, T fear I annoy you; but rail- | road travelling and having nobody but | myself to talk to does make me nervous | as witch. Doesn't it act that way on you?" Why, mol" placidly rejoined | the unsuspecting victim; Ion the con- trary, I find 1t a pleasant sedative." "A sedative" was the reply. Tt makes me seethe and fizz like the blue and | white papers of Seidlitz powder in tumbler of water" "so 1t used to me, but have got over that" replied the | gentleman. "Got over 1t; I wish to heaven I could" quickly in- the reporter You must have a secret worth knowing. Couldn't you help a poor devil like me out of the bog? Pray, from whom did you learn r your blessed secret?" Whereupon, to the amazement of the interviewer, the gentleman in hand simply smiled a be- nevolent smile, and placidly replied, From cows"
 Excuse me, excuse mel" calculated the astonished reporter, "but the train keeps up such an internal rattle that failed to catch your reply. It's very 'unny, but it sounded exactly as though you had said From cows." You heard me perfectly" replied the gentle nan; "that is precisely what did say. Yes, it was from cows and cows only, hat I learned the most precious secret ,f life. While was sitting in darkness
 hey were living in the full sunshine" You will pardon me if I say do not grasp your meaning" rejoined the re- porter; "could you not make it little ,learer?" Certainly" was the reply. "A young man of your ingenious turn # mind and avidity for self-improve- nent always interests me. So I will ,pen up little more fully to you the mpart of my secret.
 Some years ago, while myself still a 1 yictim to that state of restless boredom l m being left to my own company 1 which you say afflicts you, I chanced to pend a whole summer on a rairy farm, l where I was brought into close associ- i Ltion with cows. On enviously watch ng them, as, after cropping the rich 1 i