Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/89

 know the old story of the water and the stone. What?"

"What in blazes would he do with more money?" inquired Spence, the chief dispatcher, in unfeigned astonishment.

Regan glared disdainfully. He had put precisely the same question to Spitzer himself, but since then he had been brushing up his mathematics.

"Do with it!" he choked. "Thirty dollars and eighty cents—a year. Hell of a problem, ain't it?"

"Well, you needn't run off your schedule," said Spence, a little tartly. "You're the one that's making most of the fuss over it."

"Tell you what, Tommy," remarked Carleton, still grinning, "you want to look out for Spitzer from now on. I guess his emancipation has begun—nothing like a start. Before you know it he'll be running roughshod over the motive power department, including the master mechanic."

"I give him the raise," said Regan, more to himself than aloud. Twas coming to him, what? Four years, and the first time I ever heard a yip out of him."

"You'll hear more," prophesied Carleton; "even if he doesn't talk very loud."

"Think so?" said Regan, puckering up his eyes.

"I do," said Carleton.

And Regan did.

Not at once, not for several weeks. But in the meantime a change came over Spitzer. He swept and wiped and reported at five minutes of seven every morning and kept himself just as much in the background, just