Train cohorts

He was a bit deaf, and the dining car steward put him off with his unexpected questions. When the steward had departed, the elderly gentleman bellowed across the table to his dining companions, "Why was he asking me that?"

"Asking what?" one woman replied.

"Well, he wanted to know whether I was in a sleeper car or in coach. What'd he need to know that for?" the man asked suspiciously.

"I think your meals are included if you're in a sleeper car," she answered. "So he would have needed your room number if you were."

"Aw, well, that's all right then," he admitted. "I thought it was so he'd know how good to treat me!"

None of the three at that table were travelling together, so they chatted about children and grandchildren across the country. He announced that he was 85 and that he'd been a skier until he was 78 years old: "And I'm proud of that, too. I wish I could say it was because I led a clean life, but I sure didn't."

The older woman looked up, startled. "What did you do?" she asked a bit mischievously.

He misunderstood her--or maybe he didn't. With a big smile he answered, "Well, I ran a corporation for fifty years."