Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/444

 when the traffic falls off. It’s a little light at this moment, too. How should you take it if we had to put him on a freight train for a while, Mrs. McCloud?"

"Oh, Mr. Bucks!"

"Or suppose he should be promoted and should have to go to headquarters—some of us are getting old, you know."

"Really," Dicksie looked most demure as she filled the president’s cup, "really, I often say to Mr. McCloud that I can not believe Mr. Bucks is president of this great road. He always looks to me to be the youngest man on the whole executive staff. Two lumps of sugar, Mr. Bucks?"

The bachelor president rolled his eyes as he reached for his cup. "Thank you, Mrs. McCloud, only one after that." He looked toward Marion. "All I can say is that if Mrs. McCloud’s husband had married her two years earlier he might have been general manager by this time. Nothing could hold a man back, even a man of his modesty, whose wife can say as nice things as that. By the way, Mrs. Sinclair, does this man keep you supplied with transportation?"

"Oh, I have my annual, Mr. Bucks!" Marion opened her bag to find it.

Bucks held out his hand. "Let me see it a moment." He adjusted his eye-glasses, looked at the 418