Regan put the matter up to Carleton one day in the super's office, about a month after P. Walton's advent to Big Cloud.
"I said he was a queer card the first minute I clapped eyes on him," observed the master mechanic. "And I think so now—only more so. What in blazes does a white man want to go and live in a two-room pigsty, with a family of Polacks and about eighteen kids, for?"
Carleton tamped down the dottle in his pipe with his forefinger musingly.
"How much a week, Tommy," he inquired, "is thirty dollars a month, with about a third of the time out for sick spells?"
"I'm not a mathematician," growled the little master mechanic. "About five dollars, I guess."
"It's a good guess," said Carleton quietly. "He bought new clothes you remember with the ten I gave him—and he needed them badly enough." Carleton reached into a drawer of his desk, and handed Regan an envelope that was torn open across the end. "I found this here this afternoon after the paycar left," he said.
Regan peered into the envelope, then extracted two five-dollar gold pieces and a note. He unfolded the note, and read the two lines written in a hand that looked like steel-plate engraving.
With thanks and grateful appreciation.
P. WALTON.
Regan blinked, handed the money, note, and envelope back to Carleton, and fumbled a little awkwardly with his watch chain.
"He's the best hand with figures and his pen it's ever been my luck to meet," said Carleton, kind of speculatively. "Better than Halstead; a whole lot better. Halstead's going back East in a couple of weeks into the general office—got the offer, and I couldn't stand in his way. I was thinking of giving P. Walton the job, and breaking some young fellow in to relay him when he's sick. What do you think about it, Tommy?"