stian, he must carry for many days. A good many stories were told, most of them by Tiffany, who had run the gamut of railroading, north, south, east, and west.

“That was a great time we had up at Pittsburgh,” said he, “when I stole the gondola cars,”—he placed the accent on the do,—“best thing I ever did. That was when I was on the Almighty and Great Windy that used to run from Pittsburg up to the New York State line. I was acting as a sort of traffic superintendent, among other things,—we had to do all sorts of work then; no picking and choosing and no watching the clock for us.” He turned on[Pg 42] the long-nosed instrument man. “That was when you were just about a promising candidate for long pants, my friend.”

“We had a new general manager—named MacBayne. He didn’t know anything about railroading,—had been a telegraph operator and Durfee’s nephew,—yes, the same old Commodore, it was,—and, getting boosted up quick, that way, he got into that frame of mind where he wouldn’t ever have contradicted you if you’d said he was the Almighty and Great Windy. First thing he did was to put in a system of bells to call us to his office,—but I didn’t care such a heap. He enjoyed it so. He’d lean back and pull a little handle, and then be too busy to talk when one of us came running in—loved to make us stand around a spell. Hadn’t but one eye, MacBayne hadn’t, and you never could tell for downright certain who he was swearing at.

“The company had bought a little railroad, the P. G.—Pittsburg and Gulf,—for four hundred and fifty thousand. Just about[Pg 43] such a line as our Paradise spur, only instead of the directors buying it personal, t