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Title: Signal Service
Author: Franklin P. Adams [
More Titles by Adams]
Time-table! Terrible and hard
To figure! At some station lonely
We see this sign upon the card:
[Footnote Asterisk: Train 20: Stops on signal only.]
We read thee wrong; the untrained eye
Does not see always with precision.
The train we thought to travel by
[Footnote Dagger: Runs only on North-west division.]
Again, undaunted, we look at
The hieroglyphs, and as a rule a
Small double dagger shows us that
[Footnote SmallDoubleDagger: Train does not stop at Ashtabula.]
And when we take a certain line
On Tues., Wednes., Thurs., Fri., Sat., or
Monday,
We're certain to detect the sign:
[Footnote SectionMark: $10 extra fare ex. Sunday. ]
Heck Junction--Here she comes! Fft! Whiz!
A scurry--and the train has flitted!
Again we look. We find it--viz.,
[Footnote DoubleBar: Train does not stop where time omitted.]
Through hieroglyphic seas we wade--
Print is so cold and so unfeeling.
The train we wait at Neverglade
[Footnote Paragraph: Connects with C. & A. at Wheeling.]
Now hungrily the sheet we scan,
Grimy with travel, thirsty, weary,
And then--nothing is sadder than
[Footnote PointingHand: No diner on till after Erie.]
Yet, cursed as is every sign,
The cussedest that we can quote is
This treacherous and deadly line:
[Footnote TripleAsterisk: Subject to change without our notice.]
[The end]
Franklin P. Adams's poem: Signal Service
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