Skiddoo!   By: George V. (George Vere) Hobart (1867-1926)

SKIDDOO!

BY HUGH McHUGH

(George V. Hobart)

AUTHOR OF

"JOHN HENRY," "DOWN THE LINE WITH JOHN HENRY," "IT'S UP TO YOU," "BACK TO THE WOODS," "OUT FOR THE COIN," "I NEED THE MONEY," "I'M FROM MISSOURI," "YOU CAN SEARCH ME," "GET NEXT," ETC.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY

GORDON H. GRANT

TORONTO

THE COPP, CLARK CO., LTD.

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1906,

BY G. W. DILLINGHAM Co.

ISSUED MARCH, 1906.

All rights strictly reserved, and any infringement of copyright will be dealt with according to law.

SKIDDOO!

CONTENTS

JOHN HENRY ON UPPER BERTHS

JOHN HENRY ON COOKS

JOHN HENRY ON PATRIOTISM

JOHN HENRY ON MOSQUITOES

JOHN HENRY ON STREET CAR ETIQUETTE

JOHN HENRY ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS

JOHN HENRY ON CHAFING DISHES

ILLUSTRATIONS

The sweetest picture of family contentment I have ever witnessed . . . . . . Frontispiece

I made a short prayer and concluded to fall out

Ollie was half Swede and the rest of her was deaf

With the fire crackers cheering him on

"Ping ding a zing a boom!" [missing from book]

"Naw, we don't take no transfers, needer!"

To the five hundred and seventy five thousands friends who have made this series of John Henry books a success beyond all dreaming, my deepest gratitude.

To the Good Fellows of the Press who have looked upon John Henry with the Eye of Understanding, and who, realizing that these books were never intended to be more than an humble form of entertainment, have written thereof with the Pen of Patience, I say thank you, with all my heart.

To the Busy Little Bunch of Newspaper Knockers who have so assiduously plied hammer and harpoon since this series began, I want to say that 575,000 John Henry books were sold up to March 1st, 1906.

There is your answer, O Beloved of the Short Arm Jab!

Ponder thereon, ye Little Brothers of the Knock Out Drops, Five Hundred and Seventy five Thousand books sold (and mine is twelve per cent. of the gross) while you are STILL drawing your little $18 per and STILL singing second tenor in the Anvil Chorus.

Now O, sweet scented Companions of the Crimp, and Brethren of the Double Cross, ask your weazened little souls what's the use?

Skiddoo for yours!

G. V. H.

SKIDDOO

CHAPTER I

JOHN HENRY ON UPPER BERTHS

I was down on the card to make a quick jump to Pittsburg a few nights ago, and I'm a lemon if I didn't draw an upper berth in the sleeping car thing!

Say! I'll be one of a party of six to go before Congress and tell all I know about an upper berth.

And I'd like to tell it right now while I'm good and hot around the collar.

The upper berth in a sleeping car is the same relation to comfort that a carpet tack is to a bare foot.

As a place to tie up a small bundle of sleep a boiler factory has it beat to a whimper.

Strong men weep every time the ticket agent says, "Nothing left but an upper," and lovely women have hysterics and begin to make faces at the general public when the colored porter points up in the air and says, "Madam, your eagle's nest is ready far up the mountain side."

The sleeping car I butted into a few nights ago was crowded from the cellar to the attic and everybody present bumped into everybody else, and when they weren't bumping into each other they were over in a corner somewhere biting their nails.

While the porter was cooking up my attack of insomnia I went out in the smoking room to drown my sorrow, but I found such a bunch of sorrow killers out there ahead of me that I had to hold the comb and brush in my lap and sit up on the towel rack while I took a little smoke.

Did you ever notice on your travels that peculiar hog on the train who pays two dollars for a berth and always displaces eight dollars' worth of space in the smoking car?