Never mind if you are sworn at and dubbed an idiot. No matter if you do choke a few fires and stop a few trains. Persevere! Keep your temper, watch how the engineer does it and try to do the same yourself next time. Show him that you are not the idiot he has called you, prove that you are no fool by your patience and perseverance—qualities, like enough, which he himself does not possess.
A first class engineer, however, will show a new fireman just what he wants done and how to do it.
Here are a few lines from an excellent manual on engineering, describing the conduct of a good engineer to his fireman. Read them with care:
"With good engineers an awkward fireman soon changes his habits and appearance—he gets the knots dressed off of him, as it were. Has he been taught to come on duty dirty and late? He is sharply reproved, and very properly too. Does he throw the fire irons down anywhere after using them? He is told there is a place for everything in that engine. Is he dirty about his work? He is shown how to handle the shovel, oil feeder and everything else without blackening himself to such a degree that a boy in the street mistakes him for a chimney sweep. Thanks to such engineers, who deserve much praise for keeping their firemen in proper training, for, just as they are trained so will they turn out engineers, good or bad."
[CHAPTER V.]
HOW TO RUN A TRAIN.
A good engineer works his engine with direct reference to the number of cars he has to pull.
It would seem as though any fool might know this, yet instances are on record where careless engineers have actually pulled out of a station without their trains, and never discovered that they were missing until they had occasion to whistle for brakes.
Starting.