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 When she came from the kitchen with his order she brought her own supper also, the custom of taking this meal with the cow jerry being so well established that both looked upon it as a fixed event.

Tom told Louise about losing his job, and the reason for it, which she knew already. He mentioned the prospect leading to the right side of a locomotive cab which opened before him in Langley's friendly offer. Louise was not impressed by the magnificent future of this prospect. She sniffed; she tossed her head with lofty disdain.

"I'd rather see you a section boss than an engineer," she declared. "A man gets to be a hoghead, and there he stops; his ambition is fulfilled when he gets a passenger run, with all the silly girls along the line waving at him as he goes by."

"I suppose a man's got to stop somewhere, though," Tom ventured.

"But not hanging out of a cab window. There are not any traditions around here of engineers who rose to be presidents of railroads, or anything else. Once an engineer, always an engineer."

"Most men are satisfied when they hit a good thing, Louise. I think that accounts for engineers stayin' engineers, instead of any lack of ambition. They looked to me like a mighty fine class of men, seein' them ride past me while I was laborin' on the section. They never had a word of ridicule for us jerries."

"So much to their credit, anyway," she said. "Do