The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-03-04
STORIES.
Told by Six Men Sitting Around a Table
Taking Luncheon.

when l was coming down town this
morning" said one of a bunch Of half a
dozen men sitting around a table in a res
taurant at noon, eating luncheon, Il saw
a sort of a funny thing.
There was a laundry delivery wagon
halted in the street, with the tailboard
hanging down, and inside the wagon there
was a big basket filed with done-up bundles
Of washed clothes sent out for delivery,
with two or three of the bundles on top
lettering toward the end of the wagon,
almost ready. to drop out. Three or four
bundles had already actually dropped out,
the tailboard of the wagon having come
unlocked in some way at the top and swung
down and let these bundles fall.
"The driver had discovered what had
happened, and stopped his horse and got
down and was coming back along by the
wagon just as | came along, and at the
same time there was coming up toward
the wagon from the rear a boy who had
picked up some f the stuff from the bundles
that had fallen out. All of these bundles
had been busted more or less by the drop,
and one Of them, a bundle of white shirts,
had been broken wide open.
1T was muddy along there, and the boy
was holding up for the drivers inspection
a white shirt that was plastered with mud
from top to bottom. I've fallen down in
the mud when | was a boy and got some
muddy, but l never got so much mud on
me as there was on that shirt. And the
boy was holding this up for the driver to
look at.
"Now, you might think that this experience
would have made the driver of the wa gon
quite peevish; but it didn't seem to affect
him that a at all; he laughed when he
tool that muddy shirt from the small boy,
and then he gathered up the rest of the
stuff and put it back in the wagon and
hooked UP the tailboard once more, good
md ctrOnn thic tipna md than hn iIIDnHaH
aboard and drove on
"Ye-es. Well, said another man at the
table, Il suppose might tell you a little
tailboard story myself.
Going down Broadway yesterday I
saw a man with a big three horse five ton
coal wagon loaded with fine pea coal for
furnace use. And somehow the tailboard
Of this wagon had worked loose at the
bottom, making there only just a crack
but that was enough for the fine coal, and
it began TO run out through this narrow
opening, making a cataract Of a very thin
sheet Of coal running steadily: and as the
driver drove along, this coal running out
like that made a hin ribbon of coal, the
width of the wagon, lying on the street
pavement behind him, and he had about
two rods of his Goa ribbon trailing after
him like that, about a ton of his load, be-
fore somebody on the sidewalk hollered
to him, and he held up.
81 can't say that the coal driver laughed
over losing a part of his load in that way,
but he did take it good humoredly. and he
got down promptly and made the tailboard
fast and stopped the leak, and then he got
out his big scoop shovel and went to work"
W seem to be running to tailboard
stories. " said still another man at the table,
"and I'll tell you a little one.
]In South street this morning / heard a
policeman holler at a man that was driving
along with a dump cart full OF building sand,
and when | looked over at the dump cart l
- lA-Z ~ 49,.
OF the tailboard a little trickle Of sand
you could see a trail Of il running
along on the street pavement behind the
Garland in the load Of sand In the cart