"My knowledge does not extend beyond his father, a Southerner, now a prominent financier in New York. It appears he decided that the only way to make something of this boy was to throw him out entirely on his own resources, and apparently the old gentleman's reasoning was good."
"I believe you are right; there is good blood in him. Our big trouble is in making good railroad men from material without any blood base. We frequently have to make 'a silk purse from a sow's ear,' which is generally considered impossible—but we do it. Now the case of this other fellow—can you conceive of a full grown man with no better sense than to take a fifty-pound case of dynamite, drive nails into it, and then use it as a chair? But I am greatly relieved to know just how it happened, and if I can ever be of any service to you, don't fail to make it known—will you?" he asked, rising formally, to end the audience.
When I came out Hiram glanced at me searchingly, as though he would learn something from my attitude. He had been absorbing information from the train conductor. Hiram had developed a penchant for burrowing into the confidence of every one and getting inside knowledge of their difficulties.
At this time we succeeded in running around a freight train that had been holding us back, and entered New Orleans so fast that conversation was quite impossible.
Before we reached the station the clerk came out and told Hiram and Gus to report at the office at nine the next morning, at which Hiram became thoughtful, but not downcast.
He was able to get his old room next to mine, which pleased him, and after opening the connecting door and cleaning up a bit, he came in and gave me one of his strenuous whacks between my shoulders.
"Old man Ben, what do I draw to-morrow morning at nine?"
"Hiram, I don't know," I truthfully replied, working my shoulders where he had hit me, "but I think you will be drawn and quartered and made into good fertilizer; that's all you're fit for." At this he began to cavort and caper about like a colt.
"Well, I don't mind telling you how I feel—I don't give a Continental sou Marquis what I draw. I feel like fighting wild cats and buzz-saws. Now that Anna Bell Morgan has promised to marry me, nothing else matters."