Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/193

Rh despatcher, who now turned to the key to send the order for the meeting.

Still smarting from the effect of the tilt with his chief, his mind was disturbed. The pale girl who had seated herself without the railing was the applicant for work whom the trainmaster had turned down the day before.

The office was now as still as death, save for the clicking of the keys and the slow, measured ticking of the great clock above the despatcher's desk,—the clock that marked time for all the clocks on the entire system. Presently the despatcher jerked the key open and began to call Westcreek, and when he got them said:—

Now he began calling the operator at Lookout siding and when he answered, the despatcher shot him an order that almost burned the wire:—

The pale girl sprang to her feet. The despatcher turned and saw her, and when he