The Saint Paul globe., 1904-12-18
BY
Henry Wallace Phillips

HEAVEN forbid that I should have
1t to stand good for any Of Hys
El stories! Still. some of what
considered his most outrageous
lies afterwards received strong and un-
expected confirmation. For instance
the manner in which he earned MS
sobriouet of Hydraulic" Smith /
thought was pure fable, but no less
man than his former employer said
that it was fact in every essential.
Smith got his front name while work
ing in a big hydraulic camp in Idaho,
He was nozzleman. One day in an un-
usually merry mood he turned the
monitor loose on a crowd of Cinnamon
Who were working over tailings.
And If. ever you. saw felt shoes and
pigtails flying in the air, twas then,'
said. Hy. 1T looked for all the world
like Old Faithful had spouted in poll
parrot cage 1 don't know why done
it, no more than the man in the moon
it was one of them idees that takes
hold of you, and gets put through be-
fore you can moren reeliZe you're
thinking of it-but it was the greatest
success of its kind I ever see. We had
a 2OO-foot head of water and six
inch stream, and might say that there
was a yaller haze of Cinnamon in the
atmosphere for the next ten seconds. ]
pfped one Charley boy right over the
top of a tool shed.
.sWell, our boss was a mighty kind
hearted man, and when that crowd Of
splitting, foaming, gargling, gobbling
Cinnamon went to him and begun to
pour out their troubles like several
packs of f1recrackers going off to oncet,
waving ali the arms and legs I hadn't
knocked out of commission, he was het
up considerable. He never waited to
hear my side of the story, but just
rolled up his pants and waded into me
up to the hooks; he read me my pedi-
gree from Adams wife's sister down to
now, and there wasn't a respectable
person in it, according to him.
'T didn't like It, and 1 made swipe
for him with a shovel; but he was too
soople for me, and of all the lickings
I ever got, that is the one I don't want
to remember the most He did a sort
of double shuttle fandango on my
back, while he brought my legs into
the argument with a sluiee rake.
when he asked me If 1 had had
enough l told him I thought it would
do for the present, because, as a mat
ter of fact, if all I had more than
wouldn't have done no more work for
the rest of my days.
So then he calls me up and gives me
my time. and I must say he treated
me. square when he said goodby.
You're the best darn man on a
monitor lever that ever did see,' says
hey dbut anywheres else you're the fool
est combine of small boy and daredevil,
and some other queer thing that
don't seem to be able to find a name
for, that ever numbered this earth.
Now, get the out of this, and good
luck to you
II didn't feel bit sorry for them
Chinamen-they're only hairless mon
keys that don't even know enough to
wear their tails in the right place.
Their arithmetic proves that. It's
regular monkey fggering. They haven't
any numbers that look like numbers
at all. Suppose you want to multiply
twenty-five by thirty-six, Chinee sys-
tenn? First you put down a rooster's
foot track; that's twenty-five. Under
meath that goes the ground plan of a
small house; that's thirty-six. Then
you take an hour off, and work out the
sum with lot of little balls on wires;
then you put down the answer, and
what do you think it is? Why, it's a
map of Chicago after the fire! Shucksi
And they call themselves men. I'd
go old Job three boiIs to his one rather
than have any Chinks around me.
Well, the boys labeled me Hydraulic
Smith from that on, and I went pros