The speaker drew a typewritten yellow sheet from his pocket. He resumed:
"The president says: 'I imagine that by young Ralph Fairbanks, who has shown such devotion to his duty and saved the special under such extraordinary circumstances, the intelligence will be gladly received that my timely arrival at home probably saved my dear wife's life. The morning papers here have a full account of his remarkable adventures at the switch tower. I desire that you commend him warmly in my behalf, and it is the sense of the road directors that, while you do not promote him too fast, you must see that he gets what he deserves promptly."
Ralph flushed with emotion. He could not speak.
"Good!" commented blunt old Jack. "The president is a brick. You're another one, Mr. Superintendent, and you don't lose, let me tell you, by warming up a thrifty employee's heart by giving him the real stuff, right from the shoulder, when he deserves it."
The superintendent smiled and bowed, and went on his way.
"Stiff as a poker, looks as if his only thought was to catch a chance to fire someone," observed Knight, watching the prim, dignified official crossing the tracks below. "Look at him--cold as an iceberg. You've thawed him out, though, Fairbanks!" chuckled the veteran towerman. "That's so--there is something I wanted to find out."
He pretended to be mightily busy poring over a little red memorandum book for a few minutes.
"Got it," he called out finally: "Chief Train Dispatcher. One hundred and seventy-five dollars a month. Keep it in view, kid. You heard what the president said."
"Nonsense!" flushed Ralph; "my highest ambition for a long time to come is to run a locomotive."
Mrs. Fairbanks regarded her son with humid eyes as he told the story of the day that night.