“Now, why don’t they ask a hungry bulldog to give up a bone?” Ralph observed, when he read this in the evening paper before leaving home for his night run to Hammerfest. “Those fellows are as bad as the super himself. He never handles anybody with gloves; but you can’t handle him without having your own hands muffled. And those union leaders ought to know it.”
Ralph kissed his mother warmly at the door and started off for the station, swinging his heavy lunch can. Mrs. Fairbanks never overlooked the fact that a railroader is always hungry. And Ralph hated restaurant food. He carried enough for a bite on the engine as well as a hearty breakfast at the far end of his run.
He did not go down to the roundhouse himself, but trusted to his firemen to back the locomotive on to the westbound track and into the train-shed. As he stood in his overalls and with his coat and lunch kit near the open window of the telegraph room, he heard Mr. Barton Hopkins’ voice inside.
“Anything on, Silsby?” asked the supervisor, in his sharp, quick way.
“No, Mr. Hopkins,” returned the night operative.
“Rush this, then,” ordered the supervisor and then Ralph heard his quick step going out of the room.
The operative, Silsby, turned immediately to his key. Ralph heard him call Shelby Junction and repeat the call until he got an answer. Then he sent the following, Ralph reading the Morse easily as Silsby tapped it out:
Miss C. Hopkins,
“22 Horatio Street,
“Shelby Junction.