and
calculating. In five years Junior would be seventeen--old enough, even
for a lad who was "not strong," to earn his living. If all went well,
there ought to be a hundred and fifty dollars in the bank by then. There
might be something in Mother's idea of setting him up as a florist. And
Mother could help with the flowers.

"Hello! ole feller! look out!"

Stokes had stumbled over the fuel in the tender, in replenishing the
boiler-fires. He recovered himself with an oath at the "slippery
rubbish." Something had upset his temper, but he neither spoke nor
looked like a man who had been drinking. The teazing, chilling drizzle
continued. The headlight of the locomotive glanced sharply from glazed
rails and embankments; the long barrel-back of the engine shone as with
fresh varnish.

"D'ye know that on a night like this She beats out the tune o' _Home,
Sweet Home_, 's plain as ever you heerd a band play it?" said Top,
Senior, cheerily out of the thickening damps. "It makes me see Mother 'n
the boy clear 's ken be. It's a great thing fur a man to hev a
comfortable home, 'n a good woman in it!"

Stokes burst out vehemently at that: "This is worse than a dog's life!
We--you 'n me--are no more to them selfish creturs in there"--nodding
backwards at the passenger cars--"then the ingine that draws 'em. I'm
sick o' freezin' an' slavin' an' bein' despised by men no better 'n I
be! How a man of any sperrit 'n' ambition ken stan' it fur twenty years
as you hev, beats my onderstandin'."

He will always remember the pause that prefaced the reply, and how Top,
Senior, patted the polished lever under his hand as he spoke: "She's a
pretty respectable cretur, take Her all in all. When you 'n I run into
the las' dark deepo that's waitin' fur us at the end, I hope we'll be
able to show's good stiffikits as hern. Here's the bridge! Will be soon
home, now."

It was a long bridge, built far out to be above high tides. As they
touched it the furnace-door flew open. Some said, afterwards, that the
door was not properly secured, others spoke of a "back-draught," others
suspected that the fire was over-fed. The volume of flame that leaped
out licked the very faces of the two men. They recoiled with a bound
and made a simultaneous rush for the air-brake in the forward
passenger-car to stop the train and check the backward sweep of the
blaze. The passengers, seeing the flash and hearing the whistle and
shouts of "Down brakes!" pressed against