Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/240

228 I was his assistant. One day when we were dangling our feet from a high bench in the round-house, I asked him how it was that he had so many fights. "You are better tempered and happier than I am. I have had one fight since I began railroading; how many have you had?"

"'Bout a hundred," said Jones, and his homely face was sad. He told me, then and there, that fighting was his besetting sin. He had worked and prayed that he might be spared the necessity of thrashing men, but it seemed a part of his mission on earth. When the noon whistle sounded, we slid off the high bench and went into the washroom to prepare for luncheon. Before we left the house we were obliged to use the turn-table. "Hey there, back up. We want to use the turn-table!" Jones called cheerfully enough to a passenger engineer who was oiling his locomotive which, contrary to all rules and customs, was left standing on the table. Now Jones had thrashed nearly every engineer he had fired for during his apprenticeship and they all hated him, so this middle division man only gave him a sour look and went on oiling.