Engineer Lister had often been angry in his life, for, truth to tell, running an engine is not conducive to good nerves or even temper. It is a trying job, demanding constant alertness, and quick, unerring judgment. But when to the usual responsibilities of the place are added a cranky engine and a green fireman, even a saint would lose his patience. Ellis Root was the green fireman, and seemed to possess such a veritable genius for smothering his fire that more than once the engineer had been compelled to clamber down from his box and wield the rake and shovel himself. To add to this difficulty of keeping up steam, the 226, a great ten-wheeled aristocrat of a freight-engine, had suddenly developed a leaky throttle, together with some minor ailments, which rendered the task of handling her one of increasing difficulty.
The last straw was the refusal of the despatcher at headquarters to allow Lister to reduce his tonnage. His train happened to be an unusually heavy one which, ordinarily, the 226 could have handled with ease. The despatcher knew this; he knew also that Lister had an unfortunate habit of complaining when there was nothing to complain about; so when this last complaint came in, he wired back a terse reply, telling Lister to “shut up, and bring in your train.”
So Lister was raving angry by the time his engine limped feebly into the yards at Wadsworth. He jumped off almost before she stopped, and leaped up the stairs to the division offices two steps at a time, in order to unburden himself without delay of his opinion of the despatcher who had so heartlessly refused to help him out of his difficulties.
He burst into the office like a whirlwind, red in the face, gasping for breath.
“What’s the matter, Lister?” asked the train-master, looking up from his desk.
“Matter!” yelled Lister. “Where’s that thick-headed despatcher? He ain’t fit to hold a job on this road!”
“What did he do?” asked the train-master, grinning at the heads that had been stuck in from the adjoining rooms to find out what the noise was about. “Tell me what he did, and maybe I’ll fire him.”
“I’ll tell you what he did! He made me handle my full train when I wired in here an’ told him my engine was leakin’ like a sieve. What do you think of a roundhouse foreman that’ll send an engine out in that shape?”
“So you want me to fire the foreman, too?” queried the train-master, grinning more broadly. “Where is the engine?”
“She’s down there in the yards,” said Lister.