"Right at the bottom, sir," answered Ralph modestly.
"In the roundhouse?"
"Yes, sir."
The master mechanic drew a card from his pocket, wrote a few lines, and handed it to Ralph.
"Give that to Tim Forgan," he said simply.
To Ralph, just then, he was the greatest man in the world--he who could in ten words command the position that seemed to mean for him the entrance into the grandest realm of industry, ambition and opulence.
[CHAPTER VII--AT THE ROUNDHOUSE]
Ralph Fairbanks came out of the little cottage next morning after breakfast feeling bright as a dollar and happy as a lark.
He realized that a new epoch had begun in his young existence, and he stood fairly on the threshold of a fascinating experience.
Yesterday seemed like a variegated dream, and To-Day full of expectation, novelty and promise.