“Yep,” said Larry, and he tried to say it as a workingman would have said it. “I had to make up my mind one way or the other. It was either the round-house or an apprenticeship in the back shop.”
“Wouldn’t the apprenticeship have been better?”
“Nope; nothing at the end of that alley but maybe a foreman’s job.”
“And maybe a master-mechanic’s,” Dick Maxwell put in.
“Not much!” Larry scoffed. “Might have put that sort of stuff over in our grandfather’s days—they did put it over then. But you can’t do it now. Look at our own superintendent of Motive Power—Mr. Dawson; he’s a college man—has to be; and so is every single one of the division master-mechanics. It’s all very well to talk about climbing up through the ranks, Dick, and I guess now and then a fellow does do it by working his head off. But it’s the education that counts.”
“I guess that’s so, too,” was the half reluctant reply. “But how about the ‘promosh’ from where you are now in the round-house, Larry?”
“From where I am now I can count on getting an engine to run some day, if I’ll be good—and if I live long enough. That’s a step higher than a shop foremanship—at least, in wages.”
By this time they had passed through the station archway that ran through the first story of the railroad building and were out upon the broad, five-track train platform.
“Let’s tramp a bit,” said Dick. “They’re still drilling over that conference in the trainmaster’s office and goodness only knows when they’ll be through.”