e didn't say Fairfax," added Bob truthfully, "he just said I was to
get it to any place in Oklahoma where I wanted to go, and I have decided
I want to go to Fairfax."

"What is your name?"

"Bob Chester."

"Well, Mr. Perkins has sent us no instructions for issuing you a pass,
and until he does, we cannot do anything for you."

And turning on his heel the man walked back to his desk, while the
office-boy grinned in delight.

Bob, however, was not to be disposed of so easily, and putting his hand
in his pocket, he drew out the card given him by the railroad president,
and said:

"But Mr. Perkins gave me instructions to give to you."

The man who had left his desk before paid no attention to Bob's remark,
however, and the boy was wondering if, after all, the card would be of
no service to him when suddenly the door opened and in walked the
porter who had drawn upon himself the anger of the railroad president,
the night before, by his treatment of Bob.

As the darky entered, one of the clerks happened to be passing the rail,
and he exclaimed:

"Well, Thomas Jefferson, what do you want here?"

"Ah come to get my pay. Ah done been discharged."

"You discharged?" repeated the other incredulously.

"That's what, and by the 'old man' hisself."

"Why?"

"For not treating this hyar gemmen wid de respec' Mr. Perkins thought I
ought to when he set hisself down in my parlah cyar, when his ticket
done call for the chair cyar."

The tone in which the porter made his reply was so loud that no one in
the office could fail to hear it, and as the officials had already
received instructions by wire to pay off the darky in full upon his
arrival, when they learned that the shabbily-clad boy standing before
the rail was the cause of the discharge, they evinced a very lively
interest in him.

"The kid was just up here trying to get a pass he said Mr. Perkins had
told him to call for," returned the man who had dismissed Bob so
abruptly.

"If the gemmen says so, den you'd better give it to him, if you-all
don't want to get what Ah got."

Deeming the time had come for again calling attention to his card, Bob
exclaimed:

"Mr. Perkins told me I was to present this, when I asked for the pass."

Reaching out his hand for the piece of pasteboard, the man who had
refused him before, scanned it hurriedly, and said:

"You should have given me this in the first place. You see, we don't
issue many passes now, and we are obliged