grievance committee?"

"Yes, sir."

"I happen to represent, in the superintendent's absence, the management
of this road. I simply want to say to you, and to your committee, that I
take my orders from the president and the general manager--not from you
nor anybody you represent. That's all."

Every hour the bitterness increased. We got a few trains through, but we
were terribly crippled. As for freight, we made no pretence of moving
it. Trainloads of fruit and meat rotted in the yards. The strikers grew
more turbulent daily. They beat our new men and crippled our
locomotives. Then our troubles with the new men were almost as bad. They
burned out our crown sheets; they got mixed up on orders all the time.
They ran into open switches and into each other continually, and had us
very nearly crazy.

I kept tab on one of the new engineers for a week. He began by backing
into a diner so hard that he smashed every dish in the car, and ended by
running into a siding a few days later and setting two tanks of oil on
fire, that burned up a freight depot. I figured he cost us forty
thousand dollars the week he ran. Then he went back to selling
windmills.

After this experience I was sitting in my office one evening, when a
youngish fellow in a slouch-hat opened the door and stuck his head in.

"What do you want?" I growled.

"Are you Mr. Reed?"

"What do you want?"

"I want to speak to Mr. Reed."

"Well, what is it?"

"Are you Mr. Reed?"

"Confound you, yes! What do you want?"

"Me? I don't want anything. I'm just asking, that's all."

His impudence staggered me so that I took my feet off the desk.

"Heard you were looking for men," he added.

"No," I snapped. "I don't want any men."

"Wouldn't be any show to get on an engine, would there?"

A week earlier I should have risen and fallen on his neck. But there had
been others.

"There's a show to get your head broke," I suggested.

"I don't mind that, if I get my time."

"What do you know about running an engine?"

"Run one three years."

"On a threshing-machine?"

"On the Philadelphia and Reading."

"Who sent you in here?"

"Just dropped in."

"Sit down."

I eyed him sharply as he dropped into a chair.

"When did you quit the Philadelphia and Reading?"

"About six months ago."

"Fired?"

"Strike."

I began to get interested. After a few more questions I took him into
the superintendent's office. But at the door I thought it well to dro