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Carleton didn’t ask many questions–he’d asked them before–of Bob Donkin–and the dispatcher hadn’t gone out of his way to invest the conductor with any glorified halo. Carleton, always a strict disciplinarian, said what he had to say and said it quietly; but he meant to let the conductor have the worst of it, and he did–in a way that was all Carleton’s own. Two years’ picking on a youngster didn’t appeal to Carleton, no matter who the youngster was. Before he was half through he had the big conductor squirming. Hawkeye was looking for something else–besides a galling and matter-of-fact impartiality that accepted himself and Toddles as being on exactly the same plane and level.

“There’s a case of eggs,” said Carleton at the end. “You can divide up the damage between you. And I’m going to change your runs, unless you’ve got some good reason to give me why I shouldn’t?”

He waited for an answer.

Hawkeye, towering, sullen, his eyes resting bitterly on Regan, having caught the master mechanic’s grin, said nothing; Toddles, whose head barely showed over the top of Carleton’s desk, and the whole of him sizing up about big enough to go into the conductor’s pocket, was equally silent–Toddles was thinking of something else.

“Very good,” said Carleton suavely, as he surveyed the ridiculous incongruity before him. “I’ll change your runs, then. I can’t have you two men brawling and prize-fighting every trip.”

There was a sudden sound from the window, as though Regan had got some of his blackstrap juice down the wrong way.

Hawkeye’s face went black as thunder.

Carleton’s face was like a sphinx.

“That’ll do, then,” he said. “You can go, both of you.”

Hawkeye stamped out of the room and down the stairs. But Toddles stayed.

“Please, Mr. Carleton, won’t you give me a job on—-” Toddles stopped.

So had Regan’s chuckle. Toddles, the irrepressible, was at it again–and Toddles after a job, any kind of a job, was something that Regan’s experience had taught him to fly from without standing on the order of his flight. Regan hurried from the room.

Toddles watched him go–kind of speculatively, kind of reproachfully. Then he turned to Carleton.

“Please give me a job, Mr. Carleton,” he pleaded. “Give me a job, won’t you?”

It was only yesterday on the platform that Toddles had waylaid the super with the same demand–and about every day before that as far back as Carleton could remember. It was hopelessly chronic. Anything convincing or appealing about it had gone long ago–Toddles said it parrot-fashion now. Carleton took refuge in severity.

“See here, young man,” he said grimly, “you were brought into this office for a reprimand and not to apply for a job! You can thank your stars and Bob Donkin you haven’t lost the one you’ve got. Now, get out!”

“I’d make good if you gave me one,” said Toddles earnestly. “Honest, I would, Mr. Carleton.”

“Get out!” said the super, not altogether unkindly. “I’m busy.”

Toddles swallowed a lump in his throat–but not until after his head was turned and he’d started for the door so the super couldn’t see it. Toddles swallowed the lump–and got out. He hadn’t expected anything else, of course. The refusals were just as chronic as the demands. But that didn’t make each new one any easier for Toddles. It made it worse.

Toddles’ heart was heavy as he stepped out into the hall, and the iron was in his soul. He was seventeen now, and it looked as though he never would get a chance–except to be a newsboy all his life. Toddles swallowed another lump. He loved railroading; it was his one ambition, his one desire. If he could ever get a chance, he’d show them! He’d show them that he wasn’t a joke, just because he was small!

Toddles turned at the head of the stairs to go down, when somebody called his name.

“Here–Toddles! Come here!”

Toddles looked over his shoulder, hesitated, then marched in through the open door of the dispatchers’ room. Bob Donkin was alone there.