a murderer, a judge and accuser,
and the white, stark man on the table, whom presently they would put to
bed with a spade. They were sitting austerely upright with grave faces
as became the occasion, when it came upon them suddenly that the police
stripling was intoxicated. It is true he faced the judge with an
uncompromising attitude and stood erect, and "at attention" as if a
perpendicular rod braced his body from his crown to his heels, but when
the judge's glance wandered for the fraction of a moment, the stripling
would wink prodigiously at the engineers, and in an unholy manner that
threw them into suppressed convulsions. The thing was grievously
grotesque. It was as though a stone altar-saint had suddenly awaked
and had put his fingers to his nose in a way that was sinister. Comedy
with her wry face was peeping through a tragic mask. It is a way of
hers.

It was not until the judge observed the policeman constantly dropping
his papers and picking them up in a stiff unjointed way, that the
reason of the court's commotion became apparent to him.

"What is the rest of the story?" you ask. I do not know. I am a
reviewer of books and never go so far as the end.

Sirs and Mesdames, but it is an athletic feat climbing out of the
cupola of a caboose. I stepped on the shoulder of Burney, who is
admirably strong, and then down to a chair. The brakesmen enter the
cupola off the roof and have a way of sliding to the floor backward.
It looks easy, and if I were alone, I would surely try it.

There were four of us for dinner, and we had pork and beans, beefsteak,
potato-cakes, rolls, peaches and coffee. The butter was tinned, but
withal toothsome, and so was the milk. The butter is shipped here from
Nova Scotia, and is supplied to all the camps on the road. I help the
cook clear away the dishes, but he thinks me rather unhandy, for I
upset both the sugar and salt. He comes from Kilmarnock in Scotland,
and is a nice lad, I can see that. He has a thicket of hair that
stands erect from his head like a growth of young spruce, and he always
looks as if he had just heard some good idea. His latest idea, he
confides, is a job with the purveyors who contract for the supplies for
all the grading camps on the line.

Hitherto, I have always looked upon a caboose as something commonplace,
but now, I know it may be truly a Castle of Indolence. I have a sweet
tooth for this kind of life, and have no objection to contin