“Where I grunt, you’d lie down, Poney: but, as I was saying, I don’t blow much. Notwithstandin’, if you want to see freight that is freight moved lively, you should see me warbling through the Alleghanies with thirty-seven ore-cars behind me, and my brakemen fightin’ tramps so’s they can’t attend to my tooter. I have to do all the holdin’ back then, and, though I say it, I’ve never had a load get away from me yet. No, sir. Haulin’s’s one thing, but judgment and discretion’s another. You want judgment in my business.”
“Ah! But—but are you not paralysed by a sense of your overwhelming responsibilities?” said a curious, husky voice from a corner.
“Who’s that?” ･007 whispered to the Jersey commuter.
“Compound—experiment—N.G. She’s bin switchin’ in the B. & A. yards for six months, when she wasn’t in the shops. She’s economical (I call it mean) in her coal, but she takes it out in repairs. Ahem! I presume you found Boston somewhat isolated, madam, after your New York season?”
“I am never so well occupied as when I am alone.” The Compound seemed to be talking from half-way up her smoke-stack.
“Sure,” said the irreverent Poney, under his breath. “They don’t hanker after her any in the yard.”
“But, with my constitution and temperament—my work lies in Boston—I find your outrecuidance—”
“Outer which?” said the Mogul freight. “Simple cylinders are good enough for me.”
“Perhaps I should have said faroucherie,” hissed the Compound.
“I don’t hold with any make of papier-mache wheel,” the Mogul insisted.