Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/47

 any switch engine between Argentine and McPacken as he pushed his little train slowly along, leaning as it progressed, stopping between chuffs to straighten the alignment, entirely absorbed in the pastime, so childish and ridiculous for one of his growth and years.

"Is that what I pay you for?" Mrs. Cowgill broke out in wrath, her voice rising sharp and high.

Angus Valorous started guiltily, ashamed of being caught in the indulgence of a pleasure that he should have left behind him with his knee pants, unconscious, no doubt, in his rather thick-headed and totally unimaginative way, that his overwhelming ambition was only illustrating itself in this homely concrete form. Angus Valorous lived for nothing in life but to be a conductor. That ambition was in his round soft head when he was born; it was in his round hard head now that he was nineteen, and big enough to be thirty-nine. He scrambled the potatoes toward him, letting some of them fall, confused and red behind the ears.

"Is that what I pay you for?" Mrs. Cowgill demanded again, coming forward in long strides as if she meant to assault him. "Don't you know we have supper in this hotel at six o'clock? you great big goodfor-nothing lump of mutton!"

"Aw, keep your shirt on!" Angus retorted, twisting his head to scowl at her, growling from the corner of his mouth. "All you're payin' me ain't goin' to break nothing but your heart! If you don't like it you can git another man!"

Angus spoke in explosions, great sarcasm in his tone,