Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/87

 Spitzer began all over again. This time he did a little better.

"A dollar twenty-five," repeated the master mechanic numbly.

Spitzer brightened visibly, and nodded.

Regan stared, bewildered and dumfounded. Gradually, impossible, incomprehensible, incongruous as it appeared, it dawned on him that Spitzer, even Spitzer, Spitzer was asking for a raise!

"A dollar twenty-five," was all Regan could repeat over again, and the words came away with a gasp.

Spitzer, misinterpreting the tone, his face grew rueful and full of trouble. He was appalled at his own temerity in broaching the subject in the first place, but now he had overstepped the bounds—he had asked for too much!

"A dollar twenty," he ventured, in timid compromise—Spitzer was getting a dollar fifteen.

"How long you been working here?" inquired Regan, recovering a little and beginning to get a grip on himself.

"Four years," said Spitzer faintly.

"Good Lord!" mumbled Regan. "Four years. A dollar twenty-five, h'm? Well, I dunno, I guess we can manage that." And then, as a new thought suddenly struck him: "What the blazes would you do with more money, h'm?"

But Spitzer only grinned sheepishly as, after murmuring his thanks, he walked back and disappeared in the roundhouse.

"Good Lord!" muttered Regan, looking after him.