Waking Up the Wrong Passenger: "I say old man! Keep your hooks out of my trousers."

In this comic scene in a train sleeping car, with cream-colored curtains covering the bunk beds, a bearded conductor in a blue uniform stands in the aisle (just left of center) holding a lantern in his left arm as he watches a sleepy man (wearing long underwear, a yellow-gold nightcap, a red kerchief around his neck, and a red sock on his right foot), who searches for his ticket in the pockets of trousers he holds by the suspenders. However, as the imprinted title and caption indicate (imprinted in the print's bottom margin), the trousers belong to another man, who is wide-eyed with alarm in his bottom berth behind the standing, half-awake man. As the owner exclaims, "Keep your hooks out of my trousers", he reaches to reclaim them by stretching his right hand between the sleepy man's torso and left arm. At the far right, the head of mustached man smoking a cigar pokes through the curtains of his upper bunk; below him, the boots of another sleeper are visible. At the far left, another man lies on his back asleep in a bottom berth, while his left arm is extended to show his ticket gripped in his hand.

Nathaniel Currier, whose successful New York-based lithography firm began in 1835, produced thousands of prints in various sizes that together create a vivid panorama of mid-to-late nineteenth century American life and its history. People eagerly acquired such lithographs featuring picturesque scenery, rural and city views, ships, railroads, portraits, hunting and fishing scenes, domestic life and numerous other subjects, including political cartoons, as an inexpensive way to decorate their homes or business establishments. As the firm expanded, Nathaniel included his younger brother Charles in the business. In 1857, James Merritt Ives (the firm's accountant since 1852 and Charles's brother-in-law) was made a business partner; subsequently renamed Currier & Ives, the firm continued until 1907.