“How are you, Archer?” was the renovated soil-gatherer’s greeting. And then, as he led the way back to the quiet corner from which the young man had been keeping his watch upon the elevators: “We’re up against it good and hard, this time, young man. Your boss has stumped us to prove a thing which he says can’t be proved. Sit down and let’s see if we can’t start the thin edge of a wedge. I’ll do the hammering and let you hold the wedge, and you can squeal if I strike off and hit you. How long has this case of bad railroading, which is smashing things right and left, been going on?”
The young fellow who was on the railroad pay-rolls as a “relief operator” took time to consider.
“A month or better.”
“How did it begin?”
“I don’t know. One way ’r another, the boys’ve just seemed to be gettin’ sort o’ careless and losin’ their grip. After two or three wrecks had happened, it was all off. Half o’ the men’ve taken to runnin’ on their nerve, and the other half act like they don’t care a durn.”
“Is it only in the train service?”
“Lord, no; it’s mighty near everywhere. It’s sort of a dry rot; cars go without repairin’, engines burn out, and twice within the last week the roundhouse has caught fire. You’d think every man on the road had just turned loose all holts and didn’t give a cuss whether he ever got ’em again or not.”
“What do the men themselves say about it?”
“There’s a heap o’ kickin’ and knockin’. Some say it’s Mr. Maxwell. When he gets good and mad and fires a bunch of ’em, they raise a rookus about it; and when he lets the next bunch down easy, they kick the other way.”
Sprague sat back in the big leather-upholstered lobby chair and for a time seemed to be absorbed in a study of the rather over-massive beam arrangement of the ceiling. Suddenly he turned to ask: “How much of a prohibition country is this, Archer?”