The conductor hurried along the running board, trying to make the passengers keep their heads in, but he might as well have tried to prevent the wheels going around.
It was like throwing a cat into a bed of catnip and expecting him to be calm. The sailors joked the conductor good-naturedly, but it is doubtful if he understood a word of what they were saying.
"He's got more on his mind than the captain of a battleship," laughed Dan.
"More than the admiral of the fleet, you mean," shouted a jackie. "I wouldn't have his job for the whole railroad itself. They say they chop a conductor's head off every time a train is late in this country."
"I know of some roads in America to which they ought to apply that practice."
"So do I," agreed Sam Hickey. "This reminds me of the milk train on the peanut road out at Piedmont. Piedmont is where we hail from, mates," he explained.
"Yes; you look the part," answered a shipmate, at which there was a roar of laughter.
Sam's eyelids were at half mast.
"I'll rub your nose in the desert for that when I get——"
"Go tell it to the Sphinx. We're on the desert now."