“Was that why you left the engine?”
“Yes.”
“And you were reading me a temperance lecture a short time before!”
“I told ye what the cursed stuff does for a man. No one knows better than I! Just talkin’ about it made me feel that I must have a swaller. I knew where to get it, and I went after it. It was just my luck to have something happen to show that I was gone.”
Frank felt like preaching a sermon on luck then and there, but refrained.
Hobson wanted to know just how Frank succeeded in stopping the runaway, and Merry told him the story briefly.
“That is bound to fix you all right,” said the engineer. “I’ll bet anything your days as wiper are over.”
He was right. That night Frank was told to come the following morning ready to take a regular job as fireman, while Hobson, who was unable to satisfactorily account for his absence from 91, was laid off.
The wipers were jealous and angry. Some of them sneered at Merry, but the most of them kept still and contented themselves by giving him black looks.
The cause of the runaway was explained by the weak throttle latch-spring, which had been reported over and over again, but had not been replaced, as it should have been. However, somebody had to suffer for it, and the man who had charge of her was the one.