"Patrick F. McGuire, the engineer of Train 64 which ran through an open switch near Stamford this morning, has been in the employ of the Company for many years. He was severely cut about the face and head. He has been engineer of the Maine Special since the 23rd of last May, prior to which he had worked as engineer on Train 102. He began his service in the Company in 1898 as fireman on the Naugatuck Division...."
"Vice-President Henry T. Blomberg gave out in New Haven this morning the following statement concerning the accident at Stamford...."
"Whew!" exclaimed a reporter, issuing suddenly from a telephone booth near James, "this is some story, believe me!" He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. He was a young man and looked somewhat more like a human being than the others.
"Oh, you'd call this harrowing, would you?" said James.
"Well," said the other apologetically, "I've only been on the job a few months and this human interest stuff sort of gets me. This is the first big one of the kind I've been on. I guess there's enough human interest here to-day for any one, though!"
"There doesn't seem to be enough to inconvenience you," observed James. "Not you, so much, but—" with a wave toward the reporters' table—"those—the others."
The young man laughed slightly. "Oh, you can stand pretty near anything after you've been on the job for a while! You see, when you're on the news end of a thing like this you don't have time to get worked up. When you're hot foot after every bit of stuff you can get, and have to hustle to the telephone to send it in the same minute, so's not to get beaten on it, you don't bother about whether people have hysterics or not. You simply can't—you haven't got time! That's why these fellows all seem so calm—it's business to them, you see. They're not really hard-hearted, or anything like that. Gosh, it's lucky for me, though, that I'm here on business, if I have to be here at all!"
"You mean you're glad you don't know any one on the train?"
"Oh, Lord yes, that—but I'm glad I have something to keep me busy, as long as I'm here. If I were just standing round, watching, say—gosh, I wouldn't answer for what I'd do! I'd probably have hysterics myself, just from seeing the others!"
This gave James something more to think about.