"If you're goin' to pull these trains with boys I guess it's time for me to quit; I'm gettin' pretty old, anyhow."
"What's the matter?" growled Neighbor, still surlier, knowing full well that if the old fellow had a good reason he would have blurted it out at the start.
"Nothin's the matter; only I'd like my time."
"You won't get it," said Neighbor, roughly. "Go back on your run. If McNeal don't behave, report him to me, and he'll get his time."
It was a favorite trick of Neighbor's. Whenever the old fireman got to "bucking" about his engineer, the master-mechanic threatened to discharge the engineer. That settled it; Dad Hamilton wouldn't for the world be the cause of throwing another man out of a job, no matter how little he liked him.
The old fellow went back to work mollified; but it was evident that he and McNeal didn't half get on together. The boy was not much of a talker; yet he did his work well; and Neighbor said, next to Foley, he was the best man we had.
"What's the reason Hamilton and McNeal can't hit it off, Foley?" I asked one night.
"They'll get along all right after a while," predicted Foley. "You know the old man's stubborn as a dun mule, ain't he? The injectors bother Georgie some; they did me. He'll get used to things. But Dad thinks he's green—that's what's the matter. The kid is high-spirited, and seeing the old man's kind of got it in for him he won't ask him anything. Dad's sore about that, too. Georgie won't knuckle to anybody that don't treat him right."
"You'd better tell McNeal to humor the old crank," I suggested; and I believe Foley did so, but it didn't do any good. Sometimes those things have to work themselves out without outside help. In the end this thing did, but in a way none of us looked for.
About a week later Foley came into the office one morning very much excited.