A gleam of triumph comes into the superintendent’s eye. He fumbles anew among the flimsy train sheets. His forefinger alights upon a line of the typewritten copy.
“Last Thursday,” he comments, “you can see that we were all laid out by the Hackensack River draw. A schooner filled with brick got caught by the ebb tide and laid down on us in the open draw. What you want to see, gentlemen, is the Treasury departments down at Washington. It is outrageous that the antiquated navigation laws should be allowed to hold up business in that way.”
The committee confer among themselves and decide to make the life of the Secretary of the Treasury uncomfortable for a while.
“You cannot hope for anything better with that Hackensack Bridge,” urges the superintendent almost malevolently.
He does not tell them, but the boys out on the line know his own experience with the Hackensack River bridge. Last December and just in the evening rush-hours they found that the cabin that stands perched at the top of the trussed draw was afire. The trains bringing home the tired suburbanites were beginning to line up back of the fire for solid miles. The tired suburbanites were saying things about this particular railroad. It chanced that this superintendent was a passenger on one of the trains. He went forward to the blaze. The towerman had beat a retreat. The superintendent started to climb up the ice-covered ladder tower toward the burning cabin. The towerman halted him. The wiry superintendent turned upon him with a look of infinite scorn:
“We’ve got to hand signal those trains across here—there’s thousands of folks out here in the meadows that we can’t let miss their supper—”
“I’ve got a family—” began the towerman.
“That’s all right. I’ll signal these across.”
“That ain’t it, boss. Back o’ th’ cabin’s the gasolene tanks, the stuff for openin’ th’ draw.”
The superintendent gave a low whistle.