The Day's Work

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.007

choing round-house, you would have saved exactly
nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars
and ninety-eight cents.

A heavy Mogul freight, with a short cow-catcher and a
fire-box that came down within three inches of the rail,
began the impolite game, speaking to a Pittsburgh Con-
solidation, who was visiting.

"Where did this thing blow in from?" he asked,
with a dreamy puff of light steam.

"It 's all I can do to keep track of our makes," was
the answer, " without lookin' after your back-numbers.
Guess it 's something Peter Cooper left over when he
died."

.007 quivered; his steam was getting up, but he held
his tongue. Even a hand-car knows what sort of loco-
motive it was that Peter Cooper experimented upon in
the far-away Thirties. It carried its coal and water in
two apple-barrels, and was not much bigger than a
bicycle.

Then up and spoke a small, newish switching- engine,
with a little step in front of his bumper-timber, and his
wheels so close together that he looked like a broncho
getting ready to buck.

" Something 's wrong with the road when a Pennsyl-
vania gravel-pusher tells us anything about our stock, I
think. That kid 's all right. Eustis designed him, and
Eustis designed me. Ain't that good enough? "

.007 could have carried the switching-loco round the
yard in his tender, but he felt grateful for even this
little word of consolation.

" We don't use hand-cars on the Pennsylvania," said
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.007

the Consolidation. " That— er— peanut-stand 's old
enough and ugly enough to speak for himself."

" He has n't bin spoken to yet. He 's bin spoke at.
Hain't ye any manners on the Pennsylvania? " said the
switching-loco.

"You ought to be in the yard, Poney," said the
Mogul, severely. •* We 're all long-haulers here."

" That 's what you think," the little fellow replied.
" You 'llknow more 'fore the night 's out. I 've bin
down to Track 17, and the freight there— oh, Chris tmas !"

" I 've trouble enough in my own division," said a
lean, light suburban loco with very shiny brake-shoes.
" My commuters would n't rest till they got a parlour-
car. They Ve hitched it back of all, and it hauls
worse 'n a snow-plough. I '11 snap her off some day sure,
and then they '11 blame every one except their fool-
selves. They '11 be askin' me to haul a vestibuled next ! ' '

u They made you in New Jersey, did n't they? " said
Poney. " Thought so. Commuters and truck-wagons
ain't any sweet haulin', but I tell you they 're a heap
better 'n cuttin' out refrigerator-cars or oil- tanks. Why,
I've hauled-"

"Haul! You?" said the Mogul, contemptuously.
"It 's all you can do to bunt a cold-storage car up the
yard. Now, I—" he paused a little to let the words
sink in— " I handle the Flying Freight— e-leven cars
worth just anything you please to mention. On the
stroke of eleven I pull out; and I 'm timed for thirty-
five an hour. Costly— perishable— fragile— immediate
—that 's me! Suburban traffic 's only but one degree
better than switching. Express freight 's what pays."
[245]

.007

" "Well, I ain't given to blowing, as a rule," began the
Pittsburgh Consolidation.

" No? You was sent in here because you grunted on
the grade," Poney interrupted.

*' Where I grunt, you 'd lie down, Poney: but, as I
was saying, I don't blow much. Notwithstanding if
you want to see freight that is freight moved lively, you
should see me warbling through the Alleghanies with
thirty-seven ore-cars behind me, and my brakemen
nghtin' tramps so 's they can't attend to my tooter. I
have to do all the holdin' back then, and, though I say
it, I 've never had a load get away from me yet. No,
sir. Haulin' 's one thing, but judgment and discretion 's
another. You want judgment in my business."

" Ah! But— but are you not paralysed by a sense of
your overwhelming responsibilities?" said a curious,
husky voice from a corner.

' ' Who ' s that ? " . 007 whispered to the Jersey commuter.

" Compound— experiment— N. G. She 's bin switchin'
in the B. & A. yards for six months, when she was n't
in the shops. She 's economical (/ call it mean) in her
coal, but she takes it out in repairs. Ahem ! I presume
you found Boston somewhat isolated, madam, after
your New York season?"

" I am never so well occupied as when I am alone."
The Compound seemed to be talking from half-way up
her smoke-stack.

" Sure," said the irreverent Poney, under his breath.
" They don't hanker after her any in the yard."

" But, with my constitution and temperament— my
work lies in Boston— I find your outrecuidance—"
[246]

.007

•'Outer which?" said the Mogul freight. "Simple
cylinders are good enough for me."

44 Perhaps I should have said faroucherie, " hissed the
Compound.

' ' I don't hold with any make of papier-mache" wheel, ' '
the Mogul insisted.

The Compound sighed pityingly, and said no more.

"Git 'em all shapes in this world, don't ye?" said
Poney. " That 's Mass'chusetts all over. They half
start, an' then they stick on a dead-centre, an' blame it
all on other folk's ways o' treatin' them. Talkin' o'
Boston, Comanche told me, last night, he had a hot-box
just beyond the Newtons, Friday. That was why, he
says, the Accommodation was held up. Made out no
end of a tale, Comanche did."

44 If I 'd heard that in the shops, with my boiler out
for repairs, I 'd know 't was one o' Comanche's lies,"
the New Jersey commuter snapped . 4 4 Hot-box ! Him !
What happened was they 'd put an extra car on, and
he just lay down on the grade and squealed. They had
to send 127 to help him through. Made it out a hot-
box, did he? Time before that he said he was ditched!
Looked me square in the headlight and told me that as
cool as— as a water-tank in a cold wave. Hot-box!
You ask 127 about Comanche's hot-box. Why, Co-
manche he was side-tracked, and 127 (he was just about
as mad as they make 'em on account o' being called out
at ten o'clock at night) took hold and snapped her into
Boston in seventeen minutes. Hot-box! Hot fraud!
That 's what Comanche is."

Then .007 put both drivers and his pilot into it, as the
[247]

.007

saying is, for he asked what sort of thing a hot-box
might be?

" Paint my bell sky-blue! " said Poney, the switcher.
"Make me a surface-railroad loco with a hard- wood
skirtin' -board round my wheels. Break me up and cast
me into five-cent side walk -fakirs' mechanical toys!
Here 's an eight- wheel coupled ' American ' don't know
what a hot-box is! Never heard of an emergency-stop
either, did ye? Don't know what ye carry jack-screws
for? You 're too innocent to be left alone with your
own tender. Oh, you— you flat-car! "

There was a roar of escaping steam before any one
could answer, and .007 nearly blistered his paint off
with pure mortification.

"A hot-box," began the Compound, picking and
choosing her words as though they were coal, "a hot-
box is the penalty exacted from inexperience by haste.
Ahem!"

" Hot-box! " said the Jersey Suburban. " It 's the
price you pay for going on the tear. It 's years since
I 've had one. It 's a disease that don't attack short-
haulers, as a rule."

"We never have hot-boxes on the Pennsylvania,"
said the Consolidation. " They get 'em in New York—
same as nervous prostration."

"Ah, go home on a ferry-boat," said the Mogul.
" You think because you use worse grades than our
road Vd allow, you 're a kind of Alleghany angel.
Now, I '11 tell you what you . . . Here 's my folk.
Well, I can't stop. See you later, perhaps."

He rolled forward majestically to the turn-table, and
[248]

.007

swung like a man-of-war in a tideway, till he picked
up his track. ' ' But as for you, you pea-green swivelin'
coffee-pot (this to .007), you go out and learn something
before you associate with those who 've made more
mileage in a week than you '11 roll up in a year.
Costly— perishable— fragile— immediate— that 's me!
S' long."

" Split my tubes if that 's acthV polite to a new mem-
ber o' the Brotherhood," said Poney. " There was n't
any call to trample on ye like that. But manners was
left out when Moguls was made. Keep up your fire,
kid, an' burn your own smoke. 'Guess we '11 all be
wanted in a minute."

Men were talking rather excitedly in the round-
house. One man, in a dingy jersey, said that he had n't
any locomotives to waste on the yard. Another man,
with a piece of crumpled paper in his hand, said that
the yard-master said that he was to say that if the other
man said anything, he (the other man) was to shut his
head. Then the other man waved his arms, and wanted
to know if he was expected to keep locomotives in his
hip-pocket. Then a man in a black Prince Albert,
without a collar, came up dripping, for it was a hot
August night, and said that what he said went; and
between the three of them the locomotives began to
go, too— first the Compound; then the Consolidation;
then .007.

Now, deep down in his fire-box, .007 had cherished a

hope that as soon as his trial was done, he would be led

forth with songs and shoutings, and attached to a green-

and-chocolate vestibuled flyer, under charge of a bold

[249]

.007

and noble engineer, who would pat him on his back,
and weep over him, and call him his Arab steed. (The
boys in the shops where he was built used to read won-
derful stories of railroad life, and .007 expected things
to happen as he had heard.) But there did not seem
to be many vestibuled fliers in the roaring, rumbling,
electric-lighted yards, and his engineer only said :

" Now, what sort of a fool-sort of an injector has
Eustis loaded on to this rig this time? ' ' And he put the
lever over with an angry snap, crying: "Am I sup-
posed to switch with this thing, hey?"

The collarless man mopped his head, and replied that,
in the present state of the yard and freight and a few
other things, the engineer would switch and keep on
switching till the cows came home. .007 pushed out
gingerly, his heart in his headlight, so nervous that the
clang of his own bell almost made him jump the track.
Lanterns waved, or danced up and down, before and be-
hind him; and on every side, six tracks deep, sliding
backward and forward, with clashings of couplers and
squeals of hand-brakes, were cars— more cars than .007
had dreamed of. There were oil-cars, and hay-cars, and
stock-cars full of lowing beasts, and ore-cars, and
potato-cars with stovepipe-ends sticking out in the mid-
dle; cold-storage and refrigerator cars dripping ice-
water on the tracks ; ventilated fruit- and milk-cars ; flat-
cars with truck- wagons full of market-stuff; flat-cars
loaded with reapers and binders, all red and green and
gilt under the sizzling electric lights; flat-cars piled high
with strong-scented hides, pleasant hemlock -plank, or
bundles of shingles; flat-cars creaking to the weight
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.007

of thirty-ton castings, angle-irons, and rivet-boxes for
some new bridge ; and hundreds and hundreds and hun-
dreds of box-cars loaded, locked, and chalked. Men-
hot and angry— crawled among and between and under
the thousand wheels; men took flying jumps through
his cab, when he halted for a moment; men sat on his
pilot as he went forward, and on his tender as he re-
turned ; and regiments of men ran along the tops of the
box-cars beside him, screwing down brakes, waving
their arms, and crying curious things.

He was pushed forward a foot at a time ; whirled back-
ward, his rear drivers clinking and clanking, a quar-
ter of a mile; jerked into a switch (yard -switches are
very stubby and unaccommodating), bunted into a Eed
D, or Merchant's Transport car, and, with no hint or
knowledge of the weight behind him, started up anew.
When his load was fairly on the move, three or four cars
would be cut off, and .007 would bound forward, only
to be held hiccupping on the brake. Then he would wait
a few minutes, watching the whirled lanterns, deafened
with the clang of the bells, giddy with the vision of the
sliding cars, his brake-pump panting forty to the minute,
his front coupler lying sideways on his cow-catcher, like
a tired dog's tongue in his mouth, and the whole of him
covered with half -burnt coal-dust.

" 'T is n't so easy switching with a straight-backed
tender, ' ' said his little friend of the round-house, bus-
tling by at a trot. " But you 're comin' on pretty fair.
'Ever seen a fly in' switch? No? Then watch me."

Poney was in charge of a dozen heavy flat-cars. Sud-
denly he shot away from them with a sharp " Whutt ! "
[251]

.007

A switch opened in the shadows ahead; he turned up
it like a rabbit as it snapped behind him, and the long
line of twelve-foot-high lumber jolted on into the arms
of a full-sized road-loco, who acknowledged receipt
with a dry howl.

" My man 's reckoned the smartest in the yard at that
trick," he said, returning. " Gives me cold shivers
when another fool tries it, though. That 's where my
short wheel-base comes in. Like as not you 'd have
your tender scraped off if you tried it."

.007 had no ambitions that way, and said so.

" No? Of course this ain't your regular business, but
say, don't you think it 's interestin'? Have you seen
the yard-master? "Well, he 's the greatest man on earth,
an' don't you forget it. When are we through? Why,
kid, it 's always like this, day cm' night— Sundays an'
week-days. See that thirty-car freight slidin' in four,
no, five tracks off? She 's all mixed freight, sent here
to be sorted out into straight trains. That 's why we 're
cuttin' out the cars one by one." He gave a vigorous
push to a west-bound car as he spoke, and started back
with a little snort of surprise, for the car was an old
friend— an M. T. K. box-car.

" Jack my drivers, but it 's Homeless Kate! Why,
Kate, ain't there no gettin' you back to your friends?
There 's forty chasers out for you from your road, if
there 's one. Who 's holdin' you now? "

"Wish I knew," whimpered Homeless Kate. "I

belong in Topeka, but I 've bin to Cedar Kapids; I 've

bin to Winnipeg; I 've bin to Newport News; I 've bin

all down the old Atlanta and West Point; an' I 've bin

[252]

.007

to Buffalo. Maybe I '11 fetch up at Haverstraw. I 've
only bin out ten months, but I 'm homesick— I 'm just
achin' homesick."

"Try Chicago, Katie," said the switching-loco; and
the battered old car lumbered down the track, jolting:
" I want to be in Kansas when the sunflowers bloom."

" 'Yard 's full o' Homeless Kates an' Wanderin1
Willies," he explained to .007. " I knew an old Fitch-
burg flat-car out seventeen months; an' one of ours was
gone fifteen 'fore ever we got track of her. Dunno
quite how our men fix it. 'Swap around, I guess.
Anyway, I 've done my duty. She 's on her way to
Kansas, via Chicago; but I '11 lay my next boilerful
she 11 be held there to wait consignee's convenience,
and sent back to us with wheat in the fall."

Just then the Pittsburgh Consolidation passed, at the
head of a dozen cars.

" I 'm goin' home," he said proudly.

" Can't get all them twelve on to the flat. Break
'em in half, Dutchy!" cried Poney. But it was .007
who was backed down to the last six cars, and he nearly
blew up with surprise when he found himself pushing
them on to a huge ferry-boat. He had never seen deep
water before, and shivered as the flat drew away and
left his bogies within six inches of the black, shiny tide.

After this he was hurried to the freight-house, where
he saw the yard-master, a smallish, white-faced man in
shirt, trousers, and slippers, looking down upon a sea of
trucks, a mob of bawling truckmen, and squadrons of
backing, turning, sweating, spark-striking horses.

" That 's shippers' carts loadin' on to the receivin'
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.007

trucks," said the small engine, reverently. "But he
don't care. He lets 'em cuss. He 's the Czar— King
—Boss! He says ' Please,' and then they kneel down
an' pray. There 's three or four strings o' to-day's
freight to be pulled before he can attend to them. When
he waves his hand that way, things happen."

A string of loaded cars slid out down the track, and
a string of empties took their place. Bales, crates,
boxes, jars, carboys, frails, cases, and packages flew into
them from the freight-house as though the cars had
been magnets and they iron filings.
• " Ki-yah! " shrieked little Poney. " Ain't it great? "

A purple-faced truckman shouldered his way to the
yard-master, and shook his fist under his nose. The
yard-master never looked up from his bundle of freight-
receipts. He crooked his forefinger slightly, and a tall
young man in a red shirt, lounging carelessly beside
him, hit the truckman under the left ear, so that he
dropped, quivering and clucking, on a hay-bale.

"Eleven, seven, ninety-seven, L. Y. S. ; fourteen
ought ought three; nineteen thirteen; one one four;
seventeen ought twenty-one M. B. ; and the ten west-
bound. All straight except the two last. Cut 'em off
at the junction . An' that 's all right. Pull that string. ' '
The yard-master, with mild blue eyes, looked out over
the howling truckmen at the waters in the moonlight
beyond, and hummed :

"All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lawd Gawd He made all ! "
[254]

.007

.007 moved out the cars and delivered them to the
regular road-engine. He had never felt quite so limp
in his life before.

" Curious, ain't it? " said Poney, puffing, on the next
track. "You an' me, if we got that man under our
bumpers, we 'd work him into red waste an' not know
what we 'd done; but— up there— with the steam hum-
min' in his boiler that awful quiet way ..."

"I know," said .007. "Makes me feel as if I 'd
dropped my fire] an' was getting cold. He is the great-
est man 011 earth."

They were at the far north end of the yard now,
under a switch-tower, looking down on the four-track
way of the main traffic. The Boston Compound was
to haul .O07's string to some far-away northern junc-
tion over an indifferent road-bed, and she mourned
aloud for the ninety-six pound rails of the B. & A.

"You 're young; you 're young," she coughed.
"You don't realise your responsibilities."

" Yes, he does," said Poney, sharply; " but he don't
lie down under 'em. ' ' Then, with a side-spurt of steam,
exactly like a tough spitting: " There ain't more than
fifteen thousand dollars' worth o' freight behind her any-
way, and she goes on as if 't were a hundred thou-
sand—same as the Mogul's. Excuse me, madam, but
you 've the track. . . . She 's stuck on a dead-centre
again— bein' specially designed not to."

The Compound crawled across the tracks on a long

slant, groaning horribly at each switch, and moving

like a cow in a snow-drift. There was a little pause

along the yard after her tail-lights had disappeared-

[255]

.007

switches locked crisply, and every one seemed to be
waiting.

" Now I '11 show you something worth," said Poney.
" When the Purple Emperor ain't on time, it 's about
time to amend the Constitution. The first stroke of
twelve is—"

" Boom! " went the clock in the big yard-tower, and
far away .007 heard a full, vibrating " Yah! Yah!
Yah!" A headlight twinkled on the horizon like a
star, grew an overpowering blaze, and whooped up the
humming track to the roaring music of a happy giant's
song:

" With a michnai— ghignai— shtingal ! Yah ! Yah ! Yah !
Ein-zwei— drei— Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah!

She climb upon der shteeple,

Und she frighten all der people.
Singin' michnai — ghignai— shtingal ! Yah ! Yah ! "

The last defiant "yah! yah!" was delivered a mile
and a half beyond the passenger- depot; but .007 had
caught one glimpse of the superb six-wheel-coupled
racing-locomotive, who hauled the pride and glory of the
road— the gilt-edged Purple Emperor, the millionaires'
south-bound express, laying the miles over his shoulder
as a man peels a shaving from a soft board. The rest
was a blur of maroon ename', a bar of white light from
the electrics in the cars, and a flicker of nickel-plated
hand-rail on the rear platform.

"Ooh!" said .007.

4 4 Seventy-five miles an hour these five miles. Baths,
I Ve heard; barber's shop; ticker; and a library and the
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.007

rest to match. Yes, sir ; seventy-five an hour ! But he '11
talk to you in the round-house just as democratic as I
would. And I— cuss my wheel-base!— I 'd kick clean
off the track at half his gait. He 's the Master of our
Lodge. Cleans up at our house. I '11 introdooce you
some day. He 's worth knowin' ! There ain't many
can sing that song, either."

.007 was too full of emotions to answer. He did not
hear a raging of telephone-bells in the switch-tower, nor
the man, as he leaned out and called to .007's engineer:
" Got any steam? "

" 'Nough to run her a hundred mile out o' this, if I
could," said the engineer, who belonged to the open
road and hated switching.

1 ' Then get. The Flying Freight 's ditched forty mile
out, with fifty rod o' track ploughed up. No ; no one 's
hurt, but both tracks are blocked. Lucky the wreckin'-
car an' derrick are this end of the yard. Crew '11 be
along in a minute. Hurry! You 've the track."

" Well, I could jest kick my little sawed-off self," said
Poney, as .007 was backed, with a bang, on to a grim
and grimy car like a caboose, but full of tools— a flat-
car and a derrick behind it. " Some folks are one thing,
and some are another; but you 're in luck, kid. They
push a wrecking-car. Now, don't get rattled. Your
wheel-base will keep you on the track, and there ain't
any curves worth mentionin' . Oh, say ! Comanche told
me there 's one section o' saw-edged track that 's liable
to jounce ye a little. Fifteen an' a half out, after the
grade at Jackson's crossin'. You '11 know it by a farm-
house an' a windmill an' five maples in the dooryard,
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.007

Windmill 's west o' the maples. An' there 's an eighty-
foot iron bridge in the middle o' that section with no
guard-rails. See you later. Luck!"

Before he knew well what had happened, .007 was fly-
ing up the track into the dumb, dark world. Then fears
of the night beset him. He remembered all he had ever
heard of landslides, rain-piled boulders, blown trees,
and strayed cattle, all that the Boston Compound had
ever said of responsibility, and a great deal more that
came out of his own head. With a very quavering voice
he whistled for his first grade-crossing (an event in the
life of a locomotive), and his nerves were in no way re-
stored by the sight of a frantic horse and a white-faced
man in a buggy less than a yard from his right shoul-
der. Then he was sure he would jump the track ; felt
his flanges mounting the rail at every curve; knew that
his first grade would make him lie down even as Co-
manche had done at the Newtons. He whirled down the
grade to Jackson's crossing, saw the windmill west of
the maples, felt the badly laid rails spring under him,
and sweated big drops all over his boiler. At each
jarring bump he believed an axle had smashed, and he
took the eighty-foot bridge without the guard-rail like
a hunted cat on the top of a fence. Then a wet leaf
stuck against the glass of his headlight and threw a
flying shadow on the track, so that he thought it was
some little dancing animal that would feel soft if he ran
over it; and anything soft underfoot frightens a loco-
motive as it does an elephant. But the men behind
seemed quite calm. The wrecking-crew were climbing
carelessly from the caboose to the tender— even jesting
[258]

.007

with the engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among
the coal, and the snatch of a song, something like this :

' ' Oh, the Empire State must learn to wait,
And the Cannon-ball go hang !

When the West-bound 's ditched, and the tool-car '& hitched,
And it 's 'way for the Breakdown Gang (Tara-ra !)
'Way for the Breakdown Gang 1 "

"Say! Eustis knew what he was doin' when he
designed this rig. She 's a hummer. New, too."

"Snff! Phew! She is new. That ain't paint.
That 's-"

A burning pain shot through .007's right rear driver
—a crippling, stinging pain.

" This," said .007, as he flew, " is a hot-box. Now I
know what it means. I shall go to pieces, I guess. My
first road-run, too! "

" Het a bit, ain't she?" the fireman ventured to
suggest to the engineer.

" She '11 hold for all we want of her. "We 're 'most
there. Guess you chaps back had better climb into
your car," said the engineer, his hand on the brake-
lever. " I 've seen men snapped off— "

But the crew fled back with laughter. They had no
wish to be jerked on to the track. The engineer half
turned his wrist, and. 007 found his drivers pinned firm.

" Now it 's come! " said .007, as he yelled aloud, and
slid like a sleigh. For the moment he fancied that he
would jerk bodily from off his underpinning.

" That must be the emergency-stop that Poney guyed
me about, ' ' he gasped, as soon as he could think. ' ' Hot-
[259]

.007

box — emergency-stop. They both hurt; but now I can
talk back in the round-house."

He was halted, all hissing hot, a few feet in the rear
of what doctors would call a compound-comminuted car.
His engineer was kneeling down among his drivers, but
he did not call .007 his " Arab steed," nor cry over him,
as the engineers did in the newspapers. He just bad-
worded .007, and pulled yards of charred cotton- waste
from about the axles, and hoped he might some day catch
the idiot who had packed it. Nobody else attended to
him, for Evans, the Mogul's engineer, a little cut about
the head, but very angry, was exhibiting, by lantern-
light, the mangled corpse of a slim blue pig.

" 'T were n't even a decent-sized hog," he said.
" 'T wereashote."

* ' Dangerousest beasts they are, ' ' said one of the
crew. " Get under the pilot an' sort o' twiddle ye off
the track, don't they? "

" Don't they? " roared Evans, who was a red-headed
Welshman. " You talk as if I was ditched by a hog
every fool-day o' the week. I ain't friends with all the
cussed half-fed shotes in the State o' New York. No,
indeed! Yes, this is him— an' look what he 's done! "

It was not a bad night's work for one stray piglet.
The Flying Freight seemed to have flown in every di-
rection, for the Mogul had mounted the rails and run
diagonally a few hundred feet from right to left, taking
with him such cars as cared to follow. Some did not.
They broke their couplers and lay down, while rear cars
frolicked over them. In that game, they had ploughed
up and removed and twisted a good deal of the left
[260]

.007

hand track. The Mogul himself had waddled into a
corn-field, and there he knelt— fantastic wreaths of
green twisted round his crank-pins; his pilot covered
with solid clods of field, on which corn nodded drunk-
enly; his fire put out with dirt (Evans had done that
as soon as he recovered his senses); and his broken
headlight half full of half-burnt moths. His tender
had thrown coal all over him, and he looked like a dis-
reputable buffalo who had tried to wallow in a general
store. For there lay scattered over the landscape, from
the burst cars, type-writers, sewing-machines, bicycles
in crates, a consignment of silver-plated imported har-
ness, French dresses and gloves, a dozen finely moulded
hard-wood mantels, a fifteen-foot naphtha-launch, with
a solid brass bedstead crumpled around her bows, a case
of telescopes and microscopes, two coffins, a case of very
best candies, some gilt-edged dairy produce, butter and
eggs in an omelette, a broken box of expensive toys,
and a few hundred other luxuries. A camp of tramps
hurried up from nowhere, and generously volunteered
to help the crew. So the brakemen, armed with cou-
pler-pins, walked up and down on one side, and the
freight-conductor and the fireman patrolled the other
with their hands in their hip-pockets. A long-bearded
man came out of a house beyond the corn-field, and told
Evans that if the accident had happened a little later in
the year, all his corn would have been burned, and ac-
cused Evans of carelessness. Then he ran away, for
Evans was at his heels shrieking: " 'T was his hog done
it— his hog done it ! Let me kill him ! Let me kill him ! ' '
Then the wrecking-crew laughed ; and the farmer put
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.007

his head out of a window and said that Evans was no
gentleman.

But .007 was very sober. He had never seen a wreck
before, and it frightened him. The crew still laughed,
but they worked at the same time; and .007 forgot hor-
ror in amazement at the way they handled the Mogul
freight. They dug round him with spades; they put
ties in front of his wheels, and jack-screws under him ;
they embraced him with the derrick-chain and tickled
him with crowbars ; while .007 was hitched on to wrecked
cars and backed away till the knot broke or the cars
rolled clear of the track. By dawn thirty or forty
men were at work, replacing and ramming down the
ties, gauging the rails and spiking them. By daylight
all cars who could move had gone on in charge of an-
other loco; the track was freed for traffic; and .007 had
hauled the old Mogul over a small pavement of ties, inch
by inch, till his flanges bit the rail once more, and he
settled down with a clank. But his spirit was broken,
and his nerve was gone.

" 'T were n't even a hog," he repeated dolefully;
44 't were a shote; and you— you of all of 'em— had to
help me on."

" But how in the whole long road did it happen? "
asked .007, sizzling with curiosity.

"Happen! It did n't happen ! It just come I I sailed
right on top of him around that last curve— thought he
was a skunk. Yes; he was all as little as that. He
had n't more 'n squealed once 'fore I felt my bogies lift
(he 'd rolled right under the pilot), and I could n't catch
the track again to save me. Swivelled clean off, I was.
Then I felt him sling himself along, all greasy, under
[262]

.007

my left leadin' driver, and, oh, Boilers I that mounted
the rail. I heard my flanges zippin' along the ties, an'
the next I knew I was playin' ' Sally, Sally Waters ' in
the corn, my tender shuckin' coal through my cab, an'
old man Evans lyin' still an' bleedin' in front o' me.
Shook? There ain't a stay or a bolt or a rivet in me
that ain't sprung to glory somewhere "

"Umm!" said .007. "What d' you reckon you
weigh?"

" Without these lumps o' dirt I 'm all of a hundred
thousand pound."

" And the shote? "

" Eighty. Call him a hundred pound at the outside.
He 's worth about four 'n' a half dollars. Ain't it
awful? Ain't it enough to give you nervous prostration?
Ain't it paralysing Why, I come just around that
curve—" and the Mogul told the tale again, for he was
very badly shaken.

" Well, it 's all in the day's run, I guess," said .007,
soothingly; " an'— an' a corn-field's pretty soft fallinV

"If it had bin a sixty-foot bridge, an' I could ha'
slid off into deep water an' blown up an' killed both
men, same as others have done, I would n't ha' cared;
but to be ditched by a shote— an' you to help me cut-
in a corn-field— an' an old hayseed in his nightgown
cussin' me like as if I was a sick truck-horse I ... Oh,
it 's awful! Don't call me Mogul! I 'm a sewin'-
machine. They '11 guy my sand-box off in the yard."

And .007, his hot-box cooled and his experience vastly
enlarged, hauled the Mogul freight slowly to the round-
house.

"Hello, old man! Bin out all night, hain't ye?"
[263]

.007

said the irrepressible Poney, who had just come off
duty. " Well, I must say you look it. Costly— perish-
able—fragile— immediate— that 's you ! Go to the shops,
take them vine-leaves out o' your hair, an' git xem to
play the hose on you."

" Leave him alone, Poney," said .007, severely, as he
was swung on the turn-table, " or I '11 — "

" 'Did n'«t know the old granger was any special
friend o' yours, kid. He was n't over-civil to you last
time I saw him."

" I know it; but I 've seen a wreck since then, and it
has about scared the paint off me. I 'm not going to
guy any one as long as I steam — not when they 're new
to the business an' anxious to learn. And I 'm not goin'
to guy the old Mogul either, though I did find him
wreathed around with roastin'-ears. 'T was a little bit
of a shote— not a hog— just a shote, Poney— no bigger 'n
a lump of anthracite— I saw it— that made all the mess.
Anybody can be ditched, I guess."

" Found that out already, have you? Well, that 's a
good beginnin'." It was the Purple Emperor, with his
high, tight, plate-glass cab and green velvet cushion,
waiting to be cleaned for his next day's fly.

" Let me make you two gen'lemen acquainted," said
Poney. " This is our Purple Emperor, kid, whom you
were admirin' and, I may say, envyin' last night. This
is a new brother, worshipful sir, with most of his mile-
age ahead of him, but, so far as a serving-brother can,
I '11 answer for him."

" 'Happy to meet you," said the Purple Emperor,
with a glance round the crowded round-house. " I
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.007

guess there are enough of us here to form a full meetin'.
Ahem! By virtue of the authority vested in me as
Head of the Road, I hereby declare and pronounce No.
.007 a full and accepted Brother of the Amalgamated
Brotherhood of Locomotives, and as such entitled to all
shop, switch, track, tank, and round-house privileges
throughout my jurisdiction, in the Degree of Superior
Flier, it bein' well known and credibly reported to me
that our Brother has covered forty-one miles in thirty-
nine minutes and a half on an errand of mercy to the
afflicted. At a convenient time, I myself will commu-
nicate to you the Song and Signal of this Degree whereby
you may be recognised in the darkest night. Take your
stall, newly entered Brother among Locomotives! "
**********

Now, in the darkest night, even as the Purple Emperor
said, if you will stand on the bridge across the freight-
yard, looking down upon the four- track way, at 2 : 30
A. M., neither before nor after, when the White Moth,
that takes the overflow from the Purple Emperor,
tears south with her seven vestibuled cream- white cars,
you will hear, as the yard-clock makes the half -hour, a
far-away sound like the bass of a violoncello, and then,
a hundred feet to each word:

" With a michnai— ghignai— shtingal ! Yah ! Yah ! Yah !
Bin— zwei—drei— Mutter ! Yah! Yah! Yah!
She climb upon der shteeple,
Und she frighten all der people,
Singin' michnai— ghignai— shtingal ! Yah ! Yah ! n

That is .007 covering his one hundred and fifty-six
miles in two hundred and twenty-one minutes.
[265]

THE MALTESE CAT

THE MALTESE CAT

THEY had good reason to be proud, and better rea-
son to be afraid, all twelve of them; for though they
had fought their way, game by game, up the teams
entered for the polo tournament, they were meeting
the Archangels that afternoon in the final match ; and
the Archangels men were playing with half a dozen
ponies apiece. As the game was divided into six quar-
ters of eight minutes each, that meant a fresh pony
after every halt. The Skidars' team, even supposing
there were no accidents, could only supply one pony
for every other change; and two to one is heavy odds.
Again, as Shiraz, the grey Syrian, pointed out, they
were meeting the pink and pick of the polo-ponies of
Upper India, ponies that had cost from a thousand
rupees each, while they themselves were a cheap lot
gathered, often from country-carts, by their masters,
who belonged to a poor but honest native infantry
regiment.

" Money means pace and weight," said Shiraz, rub-
bing his black-silk nose dolefully along his neat-fitting
boot, " and by the maxims of the game as I know it—"

" Ah, but we are n't playing the maxims," said The
Maltese Cat. ' ' We 're playing the game ; and we 've the
great advantage of knowing the game. Just think a