ars to stir up his ambition. What do you reckon we
better do, now?"

I was not able to suggest anything; indeed, I had to be swallowing and
swallowing, all the time, and did not like to trust myself to speak.
Thompson fell to maundering, in a desultory and low-spirited way, about
the miserable experiences of this night; and he got to referring to my
poor friend by various titles,--sometimes military ones, sometimes civil
ones; and I noticed that as fast as my poor friend's effectiveness grew,
Thompson promoted him accordingly,--gave him a bigger title. Finally he
said,

"I've got an idea. Suppos' n we buckle down to it and give the Colonel a
bit of a shove towards t'other end of the car?--about ten foot, say. He
wouldn't have so much influence, then, don't you reckon?"

I said it was a good scheme. So we took in a good fresh breath at the
broken pane, calculating to hold it till we got through; then we went
there and bent over that deadly cheese and took a grip on the box.
Thompson nodded "All ready," and then we threw ourselves forward with
all our might; but Thompson slipped, and slumped down with his nose
on the cheese, and his breath got loose. He gagged and gasped, and
floundered up and made a break for the door, pawing the air and saying
hoarsely, "Don't hender me!--gimme the road! I'm a-dying; gimme the
road!" Out on the cold platform I sat down and held his head a while,
and he revived. Presently he said,

"Do you reckon we started the Gen'rul any?"

I said no; we hadn't budged him.

"Well, then, that idea's up the flume. We got to think up something
else. He's suited wher' he is, I reckon; and if that's the way he feels
about it, and has made up his mind that he don't wish to be disturbed,
you bet he's a-going to have his own way in the business. Yes, better
leave him right wher' he is, long as he wants it so; becuz he holds all
the trumps, don't you know, and so it stands to reason that the man that
lays out to alter his plans for him is going to get left."

But we couldn't stay out there in that mad storm; we should have frozen
to death. So we went in again and shut the door, and began to suffer
once more and take turns at the break in the window. By and by, as
we were starting away from a station where we had stopped a moment,
Thompson pranced in cheerily and exclaimed,

"We're all right, now! I reckon we've got the Commodore this time. I
judge I've got the stuff here that'll take the tuck out of hi