not keep it from overflowing.

"I can handle it as easy as falling off a log!" he cried excitedly. "I
know every State in the Union and then some. Of course, I hate to see old
Shields go, but he _is_ a slow-coach. I'll put it all over him! You'll
see if I don't!"

"I am not so sure about that," said Mr. Bangs. "Shields had the sense to
do what he was told without arguing the matter."

Quin laughed joyously. "Right you are!" he agreed. "I'd have come out of
the service with a couple of bars on my shoulders if I hadn't argued so
much. I don't know what gets into me, but when I see a better way of
running things I just have to say so."

"Well, I don't want you to say so to me," warned Mr. Bangs. "There are
certain business methods that we've got to observe, whether we like them
or not. Take the matter of listing freight, for instance. That's where
Shields fell down. He knows perfectly well that there isn't a successful
firm in the country that doesn't classify its stuff under the head that
calls for the lowest freight rates."

"How do you mean?"

Mr. Bangs proceeded to explain, concluding his remarks with the
observation that you couldn't afford to be too particular in these
matters.

"But it is beating the railroads, isn't it?"

"The railroads can afford it. They lose no chance to gouge the
manufacturers. It's like taxes. The government knows that everybody is
going to dodge them, and so it allows for it. Nobody is deceived, and
nobody is the worse for it. Human nature is what it is, and you can't
change it."

"Does the traffic manager have to classify the exports?" Quin asked.

"Certainly; that and routing the cars is his principal business. It's a
difficult and responsible position in many ways, and I have my doubts
about your being able to fill it."

"I can fill it all right," said Quin, as confidently as before, but with
a certain loss of enthusiasm. Upon the shining brows of his great
opportunity he had spied the incipient horns of a dilemma.

For the next two hours Mr. Bangs explained in detail the duties of the
new position, going into each phase of the matter with such efficient
thoroughness that Quin forgot his scruples in his absorbed interest in
the recital. It was no wonder, he said to himself, that Mr. Bangs was one
of the most successful manufacturers in the South. A man who was not only
an executive and administrator, but who could make with his own hands the
most complicated farming implemen