Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor — Why it was done

[Illustration] [Illustration: Why it was done.

] What this country needs, aside from a new Indian policy and a style of poison for children which will be liable to kill rats if they eat it by accident, is a Railway Guide which will be just as good two years ago as it was next spring--a Railway Guide, if you please, which shall not be cursed by a plethora of facts, or poisoned with information--a Railway Guide that shall be rich with doubts and lighted up with miserable apprehensions.

In other Railway Guides, pleasing fancy, poesy and literary beauty, have been throttled at the very threshold of success, by a wild incontinence of facts, figures, asterisks and references to meal stations.

For this reason a guide has been built at our own shops and on a new plan.

It is the literary _piece de resistance_ of the age in which we live.

It will not permit information to creep in and mar the reader's enjoyment of the scenery.

It contains no railroad map which is grossly inaccurate.

It has no time-table in it which has outlived its uselessness.

It does not prohibit passengers from riding on the platform while the cars are in motion.

It permits every one to do just as he pleases and rather encourages him in taking that course.

The authors of this book have suffered intensely from the inordinate use of other guides, having been compelled several times to rise at 3 o'clock a. m.

, in order to catch a car which did not go and which would not have stopped at the station if it had gone.

They have decided, therefore, to issue a guide which will be good for one to read after one has missed one's train by reason of one's faith in other guides which we may have in one's luggage.

Let it be understood, then, that we are wholly irresponsible, and we are glad of it.

We do not care who knows it.

We will not even hold ourselves responsible for the pictures in this book, or the hard-boiled eggs sold at points marked as meal stations in time tables.

We have gone into this thing wholly unpledged, and the man who gets up before he is awake, in order to catch any East bound, or West bound, North bound, South bound, or hide-bound train, named in this book, does himself a great wrong without in any way advancing our own interests.

The authors of this book have made railroad travel a close study.

They have discovered that there has been no provision made for the man who erroneously gets into a car which is side-tracked and swept out and scrubbed by people who take in cars to scrub and laundry.

He is one of the men we are striving at this moment to reach with our little volume.

We have each of us been that man.

We are yet.

He ought to have something to read that will distract his attention.

This book is designed for him.

Also for people who would like to travel but cannot get away from home.

Of course, people who do travel will find nothing objectionable in the book, but our plan is to issue a book worth about , charging only fifty cents for it, and then see to it that no time-tables or maps which will never return after they have been pulled out once, shall creep in among its pages.

It is the design of the authors to issue this guide annually unless prohibited by law, and to be the pioneers establishing a book which shall be designed solely for the use of anybody who desires to subscribe for it.

BILL NYE.

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

P.

S.

--The authors desire to express their thanks to Mr. Riley for the poetry and to Mr. Nye for the prose which have been used in this book.

[Illustration: Contents] August--Riley 32 Anecdotes of Jay Gould--Nye 23 A Black Hills Episode--Riley 132 A Blasted Snore--Nye 190 A Brave Refrain--Riley 188 A Character--Riley 142 A Dose't of Blues--Riley 220 A Fall Creek View of the Earthquake--Riley 30 A Hint of Spring--Riley 168 A Letter of Acceptance--Nye 56 A Treat Ode--Riley 170 Craqueodoom--Riley 81 Curly Locks--Riley 118 Ezra House--Riley 161 From Delphi to Camden--Riley 75 Good-bye or Howdy-do--Riley 195 Healthy, but Out of the Race--Nye 101 Her Tired Hands--Nye 152 His Crazy Bone--Riley 89 His Christmas Sled--Riley 150 His First Womern--Riley 41 How to Hunt the Fox--Nye 46 In a Box--Riley 214 In the Afternoon--Riley 65 Julius Cæsar in Town--Nye 34 Lines on Hearing a Cow Bawl--Riley 107 Lines on Turning Over a Pass--Nye 120 Me and Mary--Riley 109 McFeeters' Fourth--Riley 211 My Bachelor Chum--Riley 178 Mr Silberberg--Riley 96 Niagara Falls from the Nye Side--Nye 111 Never Talk Back--Riley 20 Oh, Wilhelmina, Come Back--Nye 165 Our Wife--Nye 172 Prying Open the Future--Nye 90 Says He--Riley 204 Seeking to Be Identified--Nye 228 Seeking to Set the Public Right--Nye 216 Spirits at Home--Riley 99 Society Gurgs from Sandy Mush--Nye 197 Sutter's Claim--Riley 226 This Man Jones--Riley 43 That Night--Riley 124 The Boy Friend--Riley 54 The Chemist of the Carolinas--Nye 82 The Diary of Darius T Skinner--Nye 144 The Grammatical Boy--Nye 77 The Gruesome Ballad of Mr Squincher--Riley 21 The Man in the Moon--Riley 148 The Philanthropical Jay--Nye 180 The Truth about Methuselah--Nye 126 The Tar-heel Cow--Nye 137 The Rise and Fall of William Johnson--Nye 66 The Rossville Lecture Course--Riley 134 Wanted, a Fox--Nye 222 Where He First Met His Parents--Nye 17 Where the Roads are Engaged in Forking--Nye 206 While Cigarettes to Ashes Turn--Riley 201 Why It Was Done--Nye & Riley 11 Where He First Met His Parents