Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/234

 ungainly figure hopping across the yard tracks from the roundhouse toward the station platform. He smiled a little and looked back at Regan.

"I guess so, Tommy—if it will do her any good. I wouldn't bank on it, though. He's a queer card. Impresses you with the feeling that there's something you ought to know about him—and don't. I've a notion, somehow, I've seen him before."

"Have you?" said Regan. "That's funny. I've thought I had myself once or twice, but I guess it's imagination more than anything else. Anyway, he seems to remember what Mrs. Coogan did for him. I dunno what she'd do even now without the board money, little as it is, to help out. There's no use borrowing trouble I suppose, but later on I dunno what on earth she'll do. She's prouder than a sceptered queen—and she won't be able to wash much longer, nor take a boarder either, what?" Carleton sucked at his briar for a moment in silence.

"We've all got to face the possibility of the scrap heap some day, Tommy," he said soberly. "But it's harder for a woman, I'll admit—bitter hard. Sometimes things don't seem just right. If you want to give Marley a small raise, go ahead."

The master mechanic nodded his head.

"I think I will," he announced. "He's queer if you like, but that's his own business. Never a word out of him nor a bit of trouble since"

Regan's words stopped as though they had been chopped off with a knife. Both men, as though actuated by a single impulse, had leaped to their feet.