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 nettle Tom after a while. All railroaders were alike to him, these on the trains only fellow-servants of the same master served by the section men. It seemed small business to Tom, this imitating the pumping of a handcar, driving spikes, lining track, which so amused brakemen and firemen. Conductors and engineers, to their everlasting credit and respect in Tom Laylander's memory, never stooped to these mocking frivolities.

Where it hit Tom was its intentional insult and malignancy, or perhaps insolent exultation over men placed by chance or misfortune, or choice, and proud enough in their selection, in this lowly way of earning their daily chuck. He resented this attitude strongly, often speaking his mind on it to Mike Quinn, who as regularly came forward with his philosophy to calm Tom's indignation.

"Consither the source," said Mike, "as the man said whin the jackass kicked him, and let it pass."

It took all of Mike's philosophy, as well as such of his own as he could command, to hold Tom from pitching a rock at Windy Moore when he went by, prancing and making derisive pantomime, leaning over and shouting "Cow jerry! Ya-a-a! Ya-a-a!"

This happened every second day when Windy passed. Windy was not a very high man in the aristocracy of trainmen, being nothing more than brakeman on the local freight, which was the very beginning, in fact, of the long and bumpy road to the conductor's seat in the cupola of a caboose. Windy had a long way to go before arriving among the great, but he was ages in