s business to keep the car clean, but when
Ray got back to the depot, Giddy was nowhere to be found. Muttering that
all his brakemen seemed to consider him "easy," Ray went down to his car
alone. He built a fire in the stove and put water on to heat while he
got into his overalls and jumper. Then he set to work with a
scrubbing-brush and plenty of soap and "cleaner." He scrubbed the floor
and seats, blacked the stove, put clean sheets on the bunks, and then
began to demolish Giddy's picture gallery. Ray found that his brakemen
were likely to have what he termed "a taste for the nude in art," and
Giddy was no exception. Ray took down half a dozen girls in tights and
ballet skirts,--premiums for cigarette coupons,--and some racy calendars
advertising saloons and sporting clubs, which had cost Giddy both time
and trouble; he even removed Giddy's particular pet, a naked girl lying
on a couch with her knee carelessly poised in the air. Underneath the
picture was printed the title, "The Odalisque." Giddy was under the
happy delusion that this title meant something wicked,--there was a
wicked look about the consonants,--but Ray, of course, had looked it up,
and Giddy was indebted to the dictionary for the privilege of keeping
his lady. If "odalisque" had been what Ray called an objectionable word,
he would have thrown the picture out in the first place. Ray even took
down a picture of Mrs. Langtry in evening dress, because it was entitled
the "Jersey Lily," and because there was a small head of Edward VII,
then Prince of Wales, in one corner. Albert Edward's conduct was a
popular subject of discussion among railroad men in those days, and as
Ray pulled the tacks out of this lithograph he felt more indignant with
the English than ever. He deposited all these pictures under the
mattress of Giddy's bunk, and stood admiring his clean car in the
lamplight; the walls now exhibited only a wheatfield, advertising
agricultural implements, a map of Colorado, and some pictures of
race-horses and hunting-dogs. At this moment Giddy, freshly shaved and
shampooed, his shirt shining with the highest polish known to Chinese
laundrymen, his straw hat tipped over his right eye, thrust his head in
at the door.

"What in hell--" he brought out furiously. His good humored, sunburned
face seemed fairly to swell with amazement and anger.

"That's all right, Giddy," Ray called in a conciliatory tone. "Nothing
injured. I'll put 'em all up again as I f