“I’ll tell you all I know, if you’ll give me a job for it,” answered Bill, with a sudden resolution to try for Rod Blake’s friendship, and at the same time to make a good bargain for himself if he could.
Regarding him keenly, the superintendent said: “So you want to be paid for being honest, do you? Well, I don’t know but what you are right. Honesty is well worth paying for. So, if you will tell me, truthfully, all you know of this business I promise you a job that will earn you an honest living, and that you can keep just so long as you work faithfully at it.”
“Honesty again. How often these gentlemen use the word, and how much they seem to think of it,” thought Bill. However, as it seemed to promise something different from anything he had ever known, he determined to try it, and see what it would do for him. So he told, in his awkward fashion, all that he knew of the gang of tramp thieves, who had been for some time systematically robbing freight trains at several points along the road, and Mr. Hill listened to him with the deepest interest.
As a speedy result of this confession a freight clerk in the main office of the company, who had been giving secret information to the thieves, was discharged the very next day. Brown, the chief of the company’s detectives, learned where and how he could discover the places where the stolen goods were hidden, and was thus enabled to recover a large portion of them. And Bill Miner, no longer Bill the tramp, found himself doing honest work, as a locomotive wiper and assistant hostler, in a round house, at a salary of one dollar and twenty-nine cents per day.
Certainly Rod Blake’s influence was being felt on the New York and Western railroad.
After his conversation with Bill, the busy superintendent found time to stop his flying car at the station where Brakeman Joe lay suffering from his wounds, to speak a few kindly words to the faithful fellow, praise his bravery, and assure him that his full pay should be continued until he had entirely recovered from his injuries and was able to resume duty.
Late that afternoon the private car finished its long journey in the station at the terminus of the road, and Mr. Hill hastened to his own office. The moment he opened the door of the inner room a cloud of cigarette smoke issued from it, and a frown settled on his face as he hesitated a moment on the threshold. His private secretary, who had been comfortably tilted back in the superintendent’s own easy chair, puffing wreathes of smoke from a cigarette, started to his feet. “We did not expect you to return so soon, sir”—he began.
“Evidently not,” interrupted Mr. Hill dryly; “You are the young man recommended to me by President Vanderveer, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, sir, you will please to remember for the future, that neither in this office, nor in any other belonging to the company, is cigarette smoking among the qualifications required of our employees. If you must smoke during business hours, I will endeavor to fill your position with somebody who is not under that necessity.”