The Cairo bulletin., 1907-12-07
PUT HIM TO
SLEEP
Strange Experience OF Veteran Tele-
graph Operator In the South

l
II worked for a southern railway
| once. said the old railroad telegra.
| pher who gets about as close to the
/ truth each time he talks ais the Arctic
| explorers get to the north pole on
/ each subsequent trip. j don't know
whether it was from sentiment or not
the banjo always being linked with
southern history, but anyway the
| southern railway OF which am speak
/ ing was completely equipped with ban
10 signals for the operation of trains.
For spell the banjo signals
around Linlithgo station got out of
whack and seemed to be going to the
eternal franlSfnrters, Just when some
fast special would be dashing through
Linlithgo going 2:40 on a plank road
the pesky banjo signalsswonld go kerr
slap to danger, bringing the fast spe-
eial up on all fours, as 1t We're. Then
hades would be tapped around Linlith-
go station with an eight-inch posthole
auger while the engineer ventilated
his views.
The company sent signal experts
and testers of all kinds to try out the
suky signals to no avail After this
sassiness or The signals had been go
ing on for spell the night operator
on duty at Linllthgo got subject to at
tacks Of drowsiness.
He just couldn't make his eyes
behave. Every night about Il o'clock
he would drop off into the sonndest
slumber.
THE company couldn't stand for
any Little Bo.Peep In theirs. So the
boss asked me If wouldn't go down
to Linithgo 10 try and straighten mat
tiers out.
Il never like TO throw bouquets at
myself, but | will say that had no
MARKS against my record AS far as
wakefulness was concerned was lit
lie Lord Fauntleroy on the job Never
theless. when ! got TO doing the
night work at Iinlithgo my reputation
for alertness or duty went by the
board
Every midnight would be at
tackled by drowsiness, and before long
would be makslg noise like Phila-
delphia. Then the first thing you know
Id be holding up all the flower Of the
time card.
One thing | did notice. Every
morning we would find our stock Of
copper and zines. used in the gravity
batteries, all nibbled up as if they had |
been attacked by mouse with some
sort of smelter attachment inside. The
plot certainly was thickening.
Il got a good-slzed mouse trap and !
set it near the storage-battery closet, !
baited with cheese. This
still came over me every |
and the depredations on the |
electrical stores continued unabated
"The company was getting pretty I
sore at me. | was Just about ready 10 |
pass up the whole thing AND come
north when ran short of ordinary |
cheese to bait the mouse trap one
night and was forced to bait my trap
with a piece of peek-a-boo. open-work
Swiss cheese.
Along about 1890 my usual drowsy
spell came on. was just reciting
Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight In
my dreams. when | heard an awful
out near my mouse trap
Struggling hard to overcome the
sleepy feeling, which grew more over
towering as drew nearer to the trap
ran out, and can tell you ] was the
most surprised man you ever saw to
ind an electrical eel all twisted up in
that piece of Swiss cheese. You see
he ordinary cheese never bothered
aim at all but he attempted to crawl
through the holes of the golfcourse.
cheese in order TO get at the electrical
stores and got all tangled up.
THE mystery Of Linlithgo station
vas solved You see a couple Of cleo
ric cells had wriggled their way from
he ditch along the railroad into the