HE CUT IT SHORT

Garrigan was the name of the new station agent. He was an Irishman, of course, and magnified his office by sending in to headquarters very lengthy telegraphic despatches giving very minute details of the many accidents that happened to the trains at his station. Headquarters, at length wearying of the man’s unnecessary prolixity, instructed him to cut out all superfluous particulars and to confine himself to essentials only. “Cut it out?” said he, “an’ sure that I will the very next time an accident happens, or me name isn’t Garrigan.” The next day some cars went off the track—they were always going off the track at his station—and as soon as they were made all right, he wired headquarters a laconic despatch, in the very rhythm of which one can hear the rumble of the car-wheels: “Off again; on again; gone again. Garrigan!”