Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/298

 that requires brains—which you haven't got. There's no use explaining anything to you because" "You can't," Noonan interrupted craftily. "You're only long on wind, Mac."

"You listen to me, you rust-jointed disgrace to the throttle!" cried McQueen, stung into retort. "You listen to me! What are you paid for? Mileage, ain't it? How do you get your mileage? Steam! What makes steam? Coal! D'ye hear? Coal! Coal, and don't you forget it. Well then, poor coal means poor steam, and poor steam means poor mileage, don't, it, what?"

Noonan burst into a loud and derisive guffaw.

McQueen glared. "You're a wild, uneducated, hee-hawing ass!" he choked. "What do you know, anyway? Nothing! But I know! A dollar a day I said, and I say so now. I figured it out. It's the difference between high grade coal and the muck we burn. It's the difference between the mileage we make and the mileage we could make in the same time. That totes up one dollar a day. Supposing they wouldn't let us have any more mileage than they do now, well, we'd do it in better time, and the difference would be ours, wouldn't it? And time's money. And that totes up one dollar a day just the same. It's the same either way—time or mileage. Take your choice!"

"There, Johnny, that's a good boy, run along and fetch me a bucket of steam," Noonan scoffed.

With a snort of unutterable contempt, McQueen turned to swing himself into his cab.