judgment and discretion's another. You You ask 127 about Comanche's hot box. want judgment in my business." "Ah! But are you not paralyzed by the sense of your overwhelming responsibilities?" said a curious, husky voice from a corner. Why, Comanche 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 Who's that?" .007 whispered to the box! Hot fraud! That's what ComanJersey commuter. che is." "Compound experiment N.G. 'Bin switchin' in the B. & A. yards for six months when she wasn't in the shops. She's economical (I 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 speaking 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 "Outer which?" said the Mogul freight. "Simple cylinders are good enough for me." Perhaps I should have said faroucherie," hissed the Compound. “I don't hold with any make of papiermache wheel," insisted the Mogul. 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." "If I'd heard that in the shops with my boiler out for repairs, I'd know 'twas one o' Comanche's lies," the New Jersey commuter snapped. "Hot box! Him! What happened was that 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! Then .007 put both drivers and his pilot into it, as the 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 hardwood skirtin'-board round my wheels. Break me up and cast me into five cent sidewalk fakir's mechanical toys! Here's an eight-wheel coupled American' don't know what a hot box 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!" is! There was a roar of escaping steam before anyone 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 run on steeper grades than our road 'ud allow, you're a kind of Allegheny angel. Now, I'll 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 swung like a man-of-war in a tide-way, till he picked up his track. "But as for you, you pea-green swivellin' 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'll make in a year. Costly, 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.-Page 145. perishable, fragile, immediate-that's me! sey, said that he hadn't any locomotives to S'long." "Split my tubes if that's actin' polite to a new member o' the Brotherhood," said Poney. "There wasn'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'll all be wanted in a minute." Men were speaking rather excitedly in the round-house. One man, in a dingy jer 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, But .007 had caught one glimpse of the superb six-wheel-coupled racing locomotive who hauled the pride and glory of the road.-Page 146. The yard-master never even looked up from his bundle of freight receipts.-Page 145. 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 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 used to read wonderful stories of railroad life while .007 was being built, 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 onto this rig this time," and he put the lever over with an angry snap, crying: "Am I supposed to switch with this thing, hey?" The collarless man mopped his head and replied that, in the present condition of the yard, the engineer would switch and keep on switching till the cows came home. |