Inasmuch as his assistant was concerned in this threatened calamity, Runnels made haste to lay the matter before him. At first Kirk was inclined to take it as a joke, but his friend quickly brought him to a more serious frame of mind.
"No," he said, "Blakeley has finally put it over. He's wanted this position for a long time, and I guess the Cortlandts weren't strong enough to prevent it—or else they have broken with the Colonel."
"Didn't he promise you the job?"
"Sure! But what are promises? I've been double-crossed, that's all. It means I must quit."
"Of course. I'm trying to figure out what it will mean to me."
Runnels smiled grimly. "The same thing it would mean to me if I stayed, I'd go back to my desk; in a month I'd have a row with Blakeley, no matter what I did; then I'd be fired and have a tough time getting a job with another railroad. Of course, the Cortlandts might do more for you than they would for me, and you might be able to hang on."
"Then this would seem to end our fine hopes, eh?"
"Rather!" Runnels broke out, bitterly. "I've worked like a nigger, Kirk, and I deserve promotion if anybody ever did. This other fellow is a dub—he has proven that. Why, I've forgotten more railroading than he'll ever know. Every man on the system hates him and likes me; and on top of it all I was PROMISED the job. It's tough on the wife and the kid."
He stopped to swallow his emotion. He was a single-purposed, somewhat serious man, a little lacking in resilience, and he could not meet misfortune with Kirk's careless self-confidence.
"I gave this job the best I had in me," he went on, "for I had the idea that I was doing something patriotic, something for my country—that's the way they used to talk about this Canal, you know. I've put in four years of hell; I've lost step with the world; I've lost my business connections in the States; and I haven't saved up any money, I CAN'T quit, and yet I'll have to, for if I'm fired it'll mean I'll have to go back there and start at the bottom again. Those people don't know anything about these damned politics; they'll think I made a failure here in government work, and I'll have to live it down. Still, I suppose I ought not to kick—it's happening all the time to other fellows who came down here with hopes as high as mine—fellows who have given even more to the job than I have. What are YOU going to do?"