Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/93

 and runs windmills. Sand bites the rail in more economical quantities when fed down by the pneumatic attachment. Every division has its Windy Bill, its Chattering Charlie, its Gasbag George; but some way, when they are on the road you always feel safe. They may work a con game on some of the agents and dispatchers, but they get over the road with the local. You feel good when you meet them. The man you want to run from is Calamity Jake, who always has a tale of woe as long as a gravel train. His caboose rides rough; its stove smokes; the caller doesn’t give him time enough for his wife to cook breakfast; the yardmaster saves all the shop cripples for his train; he can’t trust the ignorant engineers; the brakemen are all farmers, and the signal oil won’t burn. If you tell him that’s all right, that you wall try and correct all these things when the car accountant’s office stops kicking on his wheel reports, he will look at you in sympathetic sadness and bewail the modern tendency to make clerks of conductors.

Your chief dispatcher is a fine fellow and understands the art of getting away. He didn’t wear out his welcome but broke away