Pop Andrews shook his head deprecatingly. “That was foolish of you, very foolish. If you want to get along in this business, you can’t afford to antagonize ‘Boss’ Coggswell. You haven’t been in New York long, so perhaps you don’t know who and what he is?”
“Oh, yes, I do,” replied Sheridan, with a smile. “I’ve heard of him, of course. He’s a politician, and the leader of this assembly district; but I don’t see what reason I’ve got to be afraid of him as long as I do my duty. This is a civil-service job, and——”
Several of the men interrupted him with bitter laughter. Pop Andrews undertook to explain the reason for their mirth.
“Civil service is all right as far as it goes, son,” he said gravely, “but the trouble is, it don’t go very far—not nearly as far as the pull of Samuel J. Coggswell.
“You see,” he went on, “the boss has got so much influence at Washington that he can get pretty near anything he wants. If he wishes to boost a postal employee’s salary, or land him a soft berth, he can do it with a few strokes of his pen, or a few words on the long-distance wire. But if he wishes to keep a man down, he only has to put in a knock at headquarters, and the poor fellow’s goose is cooked. You can slave, and study, and take all the civil-service exams you want, but you’ll never get promotion while you’re on Samuel J. Coggswell’s black list.”
“You don’t mean it?” exclaimed Sheridan in astonishment. “Then that fellow spoke the truth? I thought he was only trying to bluff me into buying a ticket for the outing.”
“He gave it to you straight,” replied the veteran postman. “You shouldn’t have refused to buy the ticket. I guess you’re the only employee in this branch that hasn’t got one.”
“Is that right, boys?” demanded the astonished carrier, turning incredulously to his comrades. “You don’t mean to say that you are all going to the outing?”
The other carriers laughed. “I reckon there’s mighty few of us that’ll be there,” said one. “I gave my ticket to a feller that keeps a delicatessen shop on my route, this morning. It wasn’t any use to me.”
“Then why on earth did you buy it?” demanded Sheridan indignantly.