Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/213

 bump and rattle, staccato, diminuendo, as a line of box-cars grumbled into motion, didn't take on any roseate hues from the angle Gilleen looked at it; nor did an occasional ten-wheeler, out or in, sailing grandly past him with impudent airs help any, either. Gilleen's language became as freckled as his face and hands and as fiery as his head. Even that grand old Irish race from which he sprang, that wild and untamed breed of kingly sires paled into insignificance—Gilleen was more occupied with Regan. What he thought he said, and said it aloud without making any bones about it—said it through his teeth, with his fists clenched.

Perhaps it was just as well Gilleen was on nights, for, ordinarily, the master mechanic had nothing to bring him around the yards, shops or roundhouse after sundown—Regan's evenings being spent with Carleton, the super, a pipe and a game of pedro upstairs over the station in the superintendent's office next door to the dispatcher's room—just as well for both their sakes; for Regan's physically; for Gilleen's because, little fond of his job as he was, there were certain necessities that even little Mrs. Gilleen with all her practicability and economy could not supply without money. Anyway, the days went by and the two men did not meet, though Gilleen's orations got around to Regan's ears fast enough. The master mechanic only laughed when he heard them.

"Gilleen," said he, "is like the parrot that said 'sic 'em!' and said it once too often. He talks too much. If he'd kept his mouth shut I'd have given him his run back, after a lay off to teach him manners. As