“All right, so far as I know, sir,” answered Jack.
“So far as you know?”
“Well, ye see, sir, I ain’t been over it since yistidday evenin’. No tellin’ what’s happened in the night.”
“Does anything ever happen to it in the night?”
“Yes, sir; sometimes a hoss gits acrost a cattle-guard, and a train hits him an’ musses up the road-bed frightful. An’ them porters on th’ diners are allers throwin’ garbage off th’ back platform,—t’ say nothin’ o’ th’ passengers, who don’t seem t’ do nothin’ but stuff theirselves with oranges, an’ banannys an’ apples, an’ drop th’ remains out th’ windy. Th’ porters ort t’ be ordered t’ take their garbage int’ th’ terminals an’ git rid of it there, an’ th’ passengers ort t’ be pervided with waste-baskets t’ receive sech little odds an’ ends as they can’t swaller.”
“I’ll think of it,” said Mr. Schofield, making a note on a pad of paper at his elbow. “I don’t know but what the suggestion is a good one. And now, Welsh, I’m sorry to say that we’ll have to get a new foreman for Section Twenty-one.”
Jack blinked rapidly for a moment as though he had received a blow between the eyes. Then he pulled himself together.
“All right, sir,” he said, quietly. “When must I quit?”
“On the first. Who’s the best man in your gang?”