Ambitious Awkward Andy
When Andy's employer was asked why he permitted the awkward negro to remain upon the payroll, he blandly replied, "I more than save his salary, for now instead of going to the theater I have free vaudeville in the daytime." Andy was an expert in doing things the wrong way. He was eager to help, but assistance from him ranked with interference from someone else, and his employer was kept continually wondering what would happen. Hence when he received an ill-spelled letter from Andy, announcing that he had secured a job as Pullman porter, and intended "to save my tips and someday come back and be your partner," the employer mentally decided that sleeping-car passengers would he an extra hazardous risk for some time to come. It developed later that Andy, unnoticed by his associates, had become ambitious. A book agent had induced him to purchase an interesting volume called "A Knowledge of All Trades," and Andy figured that by careful study he might rise in the world. He did not know that the work was supposed to be a humorous publication, and took all the jokes seriously. Hence when he was working as a porter, he blacked all the shoes, even the white ones, and at dawn started to close the upper berths without any consideration for the feelings of the passengers sleeping in them. Then he left the train, hurriedly, between stations, for one of the first passengers had a gun. Later Andy secured positions as a chauffeur, and as an expert dynamite blaster, but trouble still followed him, and he came back to his old job, which he won back after fighting the new incumbent. He finished by dragging his rival before his employer, and saying with great earnestness, "This gemmum is EAGER to resign, for he knows you wants me back." The employer laughed and Andy "came back."
