For the next six hours poor Rod wandered about the station and the railroad yard, with nothing to do and nobody to speak to, feeling about as lonely and uncomfortable as it is possible for a healthy and naturally light-hearted boy to feel. He strolled into the station twenty times to study the slow moving hands of its big clock, and never had the hours appeared to drag along so wearily. When not thus engaged he haunted the freight yard, mounting the steps of every caboose he saw, in the hope of recognizing it. At length, to his great joy, shortly before five o’clock he saw, through a window set in the door of one of these, the well-remembered interior in which he had spent the preceding night. He could not be mistaken, for there lay his own M. I. P. bag on one of the lockers. But the car was empty, and its doors were locked. Carefully observing its number, which was 18, and determined to return to it as quickly as possible, Rod directed his steps once more in the direction of the superintendent’s office.
The same boy whom he had seen in the morning greeted him with an aggravating grin, and said: “You’re too late. The ‘super’ was here half an hour ago; but he’s left, and gone out over the road. Perhaps he won’t be back for a week.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Rod in such a hopeless tone that even the boy’s stony young heart was touched by it.
“Is it R. R. B.?” he asked, meaning, “Are you on railroad business?”
“Yes,” answered Rod, thinking his own initials were meant.
“Then perhaps the private secretary can attend to it,” said the boy. “He’s in there.” Here he pointed with his thumb towards an inner room, “and I’ll go see.”
In a moment he returned, saying, “Yes. He says he’ll see you if it’s R. R. B., and you can go right in.”
Rodman did as directed, and found himself in a handsomely-furnished office, which, somewhat to his surprise, was filled with cigarette smoke. In it, with his back turned toward the door, and apparently busily engaged in writing, a young man sat at one of the two desks that it contained.
“Well, sir,” said this individual, without looking up, in a voice intended to be severe and business-like, but which was somewhat disguised by a cigarette held between his teeth, “What can I do for you?”
“I came,” answered Rod, hesitatingly, “to see if the superintendent of this road could give me any employment on it.”