The train was en route from Bangor to Portland. One of Maine's typical sons was stretched across two seats in the day-coach contemplating the rugged scenery. At a small station another male boarded the coach. The passenger had the eager, inquiring eye and the long prehensile nose of a certain sub-species of
the genus Yankee, of which he was a perfect specimen.

As he slumped down alongside the sprawling one, the newcomer spied in the rack above their heads a stout, smallish wooden box, heavily corded, with augur holes bored in the sides and ends of it. Speaking in a gorgeous Down-East drawl the inquisitive party put his first question:

"Nice day?"

"Yep," said the other.

"Goin' fur?"

"Portland."

"Portland, huh? - live thar?"

"No, visiting."

"That your box up thar?"

"Yep."

"Looks kind of solid?"

"Is."

"Looks kind of heavy, too?"

"Is."

"Got holes in it, I see?"

"Yep."

"Whut's the holes fur?"

"Air."

"Whut you need air fur?"

"So it can breathe."

"So whut kin breathe?"

"What's inside."

"Oh!...Well, whut is inside?"

"Mongoose."

"Mon which?"

"No, mongoose."

"Mongoose, heh?"

"Yep."

"Whut the heck is a mongoose?"

"Small East Indian animal."

"Slick?"

"No, furry."

"Tame?"

"Not very."

"Would it bite you?"

"In a minute."

"Whut you want with a critter like that?"

The pestered traveler straightened up.

"Well," he said, "I'll tell you. A mongoose is an
animal that lives off reptiles - snakes, lizards, toads. I've got an uncle in Portland. Fine man, respected citizen and all that, but he's
got one weakness. Drinks. When he drinks he's bothered by snakes and lizards. I'm taking the mongoose down there to eat 'em."

"Yes, but gosh! Them varmints he sees is imaginary snakes!"

"Well, this is an imaginary mongoose."

    ...... by Irvin S. Cobb, 1925


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