LITTLE JACK’S PROMOTION
“I don’t care a tinker’s dime about Denis McGuire,“ said the agent, angrily, “but something must be done for little Jack. He’s having malaria. Winter will be coming on and he can’t stand a winter in that shanty.”
“I can take Jack in my office to carry dispatches,” said the roadmaster; “but who can I put on the bridge to watch it as that boy does?”
“There you are,” replied the agent, sarcastically. “Because the boy is faithful, you would keep him there until he dies and leaves his mother utterly helpless. But,” he added quickly—for he was a good stayer when he elected to stay—“since you ask my advice, I’ll tell you: Put Denis McGuire on the bridge—he’s a cripple for life; crippled in the service of this company.”
“I’ve told ye,” said the roadmaster, “that Denis McGuire was barred from workin’ fur the Vandalia phile I’m here.”
The agent wore a look of disgust, as he turned to answer a call.
Presently he came near the roadmaster, drew a chair, and said, as though he were telling a new, strange story to a little child: “I knew a section boss once who let a flat car get away on the hill at Collinsville; the car ran out on the main line, collided with the President’s private car, wrecked it and killed a trainman. He was discharged, reinstated after a few months, and is now—”
“That was not my fault,” broke in the roadmaster, “I sint a man to set the brake.”
“Denis McGuire sent a man to flag, but—”
“And he should have seen the flagman beyent th’ curve before loadin’ th’ push kayre.”