He brings the coffeepot from the kitchen and then kicks it away that he may boil the coffee in an old can as a courtesy to the young hobo; and sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs he sets out from his bundle.
"Never can we become acquainted," resumes Mr. Craney; "because how could I ask her to be mine and all the time about to be swallowed up," he says, "by the Barlow Suburban, which has already swallowed my father who built it, and his estate and my own earnings for five years?" And now he makes plain that he is seizing the opportunity to travel away in search of fortune, having found a manager in rags who can afford to live on the dividends of the Suburban.
"We are not engaged; far from it," he says; "yet never would I desert her to walk such ties as the Barlow Suburban, more cruel than the ties which bind us together." So he makes out a time card. "In the morning she goes to work, and back at evening; and some day she may be minded to ride at noon for the sake of the exercise which is to be had on the B. S. car." He gives Tim this time card and the key to the box which the nickels are dropped in. "Good-by; I can trust you." He points up to the sky. "Do not leave her walk; you solemnly promise! Good-by!"
And having turned his coat wrong side out he twists a red handkerchief round his neck and is gone. And as he becomes smaller with distance Timothy feels his own body swell larger with importance; having tried the key in the fare box he leaves the nickel there as a come-on, and kicks the horse to his feet as he has seen the truckmen do in the city slums.
After a bit the lime burners arrive from the kiln half a mile away, and Tim drives them to Barlow. All the way he thinks of the smoky yards with the groan of toil rising from them, where all have dwelt so long, afraid of Regan.
"Myself will rise up to be big boss," he says.
Well the gossoon understands, with the scar on his temple and body still marked from the drunkard's blows that no one can rule except by fear, so he speeds up Charley with slaps of the reins, and after unhitching at the terminal chases him up the incline and into the stall with a stick. "Never let me see you staggering or sitting down on the job," he warns in kindly caution, so that Charley may save himself some of the beatings.
With a smolder in his eyes and drumbeat in his bony little breast Tim sits on his pallet below a lantern hung to a beam, listening whilst the old building rolls and pitches to the passing trains and loose shingles hoot in the blast above. And 't is worthy of note that spiders swing down from cobwebbed rafters to glare at him with interest as a comrade weaving a web of his own; and the mice do not come out at present, but scurry all to set their nests in order and be ready for the part they are to play in the history of Tim the messenger. 'T is little we know.
In a few days Tim has made a study of the Suburban's affairs; six or seven of the lime burners ride with him on weekdays, and also Katy O'Hare; but on Sunday he has no passengers, the kiln being closed down so that the burners may convalesce from riding on the Suburban, and Katy choosing to walk along the path by the rosebush with sidelong glance and blush lest the elegant young gentleman with whom she is not acquainted be on the car platform. In the evening Tim dines at the lunch wagon across the track for a dime, and morning and noon munches a loaf with indignation of Charley, who draws a hatful of oats three times a day.
But soon after he has cut the ration to two hatfuls Charley sits down on the track, indifferent to the gadfly and all the beatings, till they compromise on two and a half hatfuls, Tim rubbing his scar with remembrance.