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VOL. XXII

AUGUST, 1897

NO. 2

.007

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

OW, a locomotive is, next to a marine engine, of course, the most sensitive thing man ever made; and No. .007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his headlight shone like a fireman's helmet in a street parade, and his cab might have been a hardwoodfinish parlor. They had run him into the round-house after his trial-he had said good-by to his best friend in the shops, the overhead travelling-crane; the big world was just outside and—the other locos were taking stock of him. He looked at the semicircle of bold, unwinking headlights, heard the low purr and mutter of the steam mounting in the gauges, scornful hisses of contempt as a slack valve lifted a little, and would have given a month's oil for leave to crawl through his own driving-wheels into the brick ash-pit beneath him. .007 was an eight-wheeled "American" loco, but a little different from others of his type, and as he stood he was worth $10,000 on the Company's books. But if you had bought him at his own valuation, after half an hour's waiting in the darkish echoing round-house, you would have saved exactly nine thousand nine hundred and ninetynine dollars and ninety-eight cents. A heavy Mogul freight, with a short cowcatcher and a deep fire-box, that came down within three inches of the rail, began the game, speaking to a Pittsburgh Consolidation, 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 locomotive 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 Pennsylvania 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 guarantee?"

.007 could have carried the switchingloco 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 the Consolidation. "That -er-peanut-stand's old enough and ugly enough to speak for himself."

He hasn't bin spoken to yet. He's bin spoke at. Hain't ye any manners on

Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. All rights reserved.

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and said that what he said went.-Page 139.

A man in a black Prince Albert, without a collar, came up the Pennsylvania?" said the switching- temptuously. "A heap you haul! It's all loco.

"You ought to be in the yard, Poney," said the Mogul, severely. "We're all longhaulers here."

"That's what you think," said the little fellow. "You'll know more 'fore the night's out. I've been down to Track Seventeen and the freight there- Oh, Christmas!"

"I've trouble enough in my own division," said a lean, light suburban loco, with very shiny brake-shoes. "My commuters wouldn't rest till they got a parlor-car. They've hitched it on just ahead o' the caboose, and it hauls worse'n a snowplough. I'll snap her off some day sure, and then they'll blame every one except their fool-selves. They'll be askin' me to haul a vestibuled next!"

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

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"Haul! You?" said the Mogul, con

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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-eleven 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 one degree better than switching. Express freight's what pays."

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

"No? You were 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. Notwithstandin', if you want to see freight that is freight, moved lively, you should see me warbling through the Alleghenies with thirty-seven ore-cars behind me and the brakemen fightin' tramps till 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

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Then .007 put both drivers and his pilot into it, as the saying is, for he asked what sort of a thing a hot box might be ?-Page 138.

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