"Sure," said Patsy, "I don't intend to quit you as long as you have a brake for me to turn."
"There's a lot of brakes that nobody is turning right now; come, you young rascal, will you go to work?"
"Now," said the young rascal, "you know what it says at the bottom of the time-card: 'In case of doubt take the safe side.' I'm waiting to see which side is safe."
With that the manager went back to his desk and closed the door behind him, and the secretary went on with his work.
Patsy stood and looked out at the window for a while, and then said half to himself, but so the clerk could hear him: "Poor little mother, how she will miss me to-night."
The secretary said nothing, but leaving his desk entered the office of his chief, and when they had talked over the business of the hour and read the story prepared by the passenger department for the press that day, he asked what should be done for Patsy.
"Oh! give him the letter, I suppose, but he's the only employee on the road I would do so much for."
"And he's the only one with nerve enough to ask it," said the secretary.
"Yes, he is a bit nervy, John; but it isn't an offensive sort of nerve; and then he's so happy. Why, he really rests me when he comes in. He's smart, too, too smart to be a striker and he may be of some use to us yet."
In a little while Patsy went singing himself out just as he had sung himself in. The general manager sat watching the happy youth from the outer door of his room until the song and the sound of footsteps died away in the wide hall. Turning to his desk he sighed and said: "Ah, well! the English poet was right when he wrote: