The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-08-03
might OF HORROR
FOR dave DINAN
1T ALL CAME ABOUT OVER HIS
PROPENSITY TO SHORE, DREAM.
ED OF BLACK HAND AND ALL
OTHER cALAMITIEs, BUT END
ED RIGHTLY.

Those who have missed hearing
Dave Oman snore and who will never
have this great pleasure might as well
put it down in their little books that
they have lived in vain. Dave Is the
genial travelling salesman ou Of Fargo
for the Fargo Bottling works. 1t is
said hat he can snore in eighteen
different languages and that when he
really gets right there is no use for
anybody else entering the lists.
A few days ago Dave had his num-
Der mines propped up on the keyboard
of a typewriter in the offices Of the
bottling works M while trying to
make Manager Fin Leech forget the
heat told this one:
"A few nights ago l was out on the
slope with a brother order-taker and
by reason Of our having forgot to
speak for a berth in the sleeper we
were forced to take uppers. Now up
per berths never did agree with me,
and / really believe they make me
snore worse than ordinary. After go
ing through a few dozen acrobatic
stunts l finally got located in the
cuddyhole assigned to me and fell to
sleep. How long 1 had been in dream
land before it happened I do not
know, but all of a sudden l felt some
thing strike me an awful blow where
the ache in stomach ache congregates,
Not daring to move / laid there and
| trembled as If the ague had me. I
| thought about all the black hand sto-
ries / had ever read. / knew it was a
bomb that lay on my frontispiece, and
IL was almost sure / could hear the
sputter of the fuse. 1t was fully 1--WE
minutes before / raked up the nerve
to raise my head and peer into the
dark and make an effort to see what
had me in its grasp. / started to
touch 1t, but not might just need
one touch to blow me into drummer
hash. And for another five minutes
which seemed more like Ave centuries,
I laid there and listened to the fateful
tick of the terrible Internal machine
which I now knew would not leave me
until it had blown me into the bosom
of Abraham or somebody else. But I
couldn't stand it always. Being pick
ed IN by the spoonful could not be
worse than the dreadful torture / was
passing through. So gently, hardly
daring to breathe, I reached out and
gripped the very edge Of the horrible
lcontrivance, and without eve looking
which way it might go / slammed 1t
with all the power at my command
clear through a ventilator above my
head. There was not a sound to
break the stiffness. Only the wheezy
inhaling and exhaling of ozone by an
old maid cross the way relieved the
oppressive silence. There being moth
ing else to do. and not having the
strength to call for help, / dropped
into a ftful sleep and cold beads Of
p~erspiration dripped from my berth to
that below. Next morning / woke with
a start to find the Pullman porter tug
ging gently at my sleeve.
Say, boss says the porter, Use
looking fer a lady's slippah.'
wei says I, I amt got no lady
with me, so why are you waking me UP
to tell your troubles?
"'Hit's jes' dis way, WIFI folks says
Rastus. DE lady ober dere las night
frew a slipah at yuh while yuh was
snorin' so loud
".And I noticed" concluded Dave,
shat when a certain little woman
went down the aisle a few minutes
later she was walking with a decided
limp"