“As I have told you a dozen times, Mr. Glidden, we are short-handed.”
“I know! I know, boy! But this system is having an economical streak and I am afraid I cannot squeeze you through another assistant, Ralph. Not just now.”
“It better be now, or it will be too late,” declared Ralph. “This efficiency expert that is running things at this terminal is going to get to the board and show ’em that I can run this office with a cripple and a fifteen year old boy, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You mean the super?” exclaimed Mr. Glidden.
“I see you are a good guesser.”
“Barton Hopkins is the limit!” exclaimed the chief dispatcher of the Great Northern. “I had no idea he would have the impudence to interfere in our affairs.”
“I’m telling you. He has just now told me how I can work two shifts a day myself and so save one man’s salary.”
“Don’t pay the least attention to him, Ralph!” said Mr. Glidden earnestly.
“Just the same I have an idea that you are going to hear from him. And he’ll go higher up. He is as persistent as a red ant.”
“And just about as useful,” growled out Glidden over the wire. “And I never did see that ants were of much use in spite of all the philosophers. They are just a nuisance when they get into the sugar.”