Punch, brothers, punch

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/6/2009 03:09 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>'Twas a *streetcar* conductor, George.
>
>-Wilson

My recollection was that Twain wrote of the refrain matching the
clicking of the wheels of a *railroad* train, so I checked.  Twain
does not say whether what he read in the newspaper was about a
streetcar or railroad.  But he writes that the person he passed the
earworm off to reported back his experience on "the night train to Boston":

"The occasion was the death of a valued old friend who had requested
that I should preach his funeral sermon. I took my seat in the cars
and set myself to framing the discourse. But I never got beyond the
opening paragraph; for then the train started and the car-wheels
began their 'clack, clack-clack-clack-clack! clack-clack!
--clack-clack-clack!' and right away those odious rhymes fitted
themselves to that accompaniment. For an hour I sat there and set a
syllable of those rhymes to every separate and distinct clack the
car-wheels made."  [etc.]

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/559/

Joel

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