n--far from it. For a week he was
missing, and then one afternoon young Hinton, of the division
engineer's staff, strolled into the office, nodded at Carleton, and
grinned at the master mechanic, who was tilted back in a chair with his
feet on the window sill.

"I dropped off this morning to look over the new grading work at The
Gap," said Hinton casually. "And I thought you might be interested to
know that MacMurtrey's got a man working for him up there by the name
of Timmy O'Toole."

"Doesn't interest me," said Regan blandly, chewing steadily on his
blackstrap. "Try and spring it on the super, Hinton. He always bites."

"Who's Timmy O'Toole?" smiled Carleton.

Hinton squinted at the ceiling.

"Sammy Durgan," said Hinton--casually.

There wasn't a word spoken for a minute. Regan lifted his feet from
the window sill and lowered his chair legs softly down to the floor as
though he were afraid of making a noise, and the smile on Carleton's
face sort of faded away as though a blight had withered it.

"What was the name?" said Carleton presently, in a velvet voice.

"Timmy O'Toole," said Hinton.

Carleton's hand reached out, kind of as though of its own initiative,
kind of as though it were just habit, for a telegraph blank--but Regan
stopped him. It wasn't often that the fat, good-natured little master
mechanic was vindictive, but there were times when even Regan's soul
was overburdened.

"Wait!" said Regan, with ferocious grimness. "Wait! I'll make a
better job of it than that, Carleton. I'm going up the line myself
to-morrow morning on Number Three--and _I'll_ drop off at The Gap.
Timmy O'Toole now, is it? I'll make him sick!" Regan clenched his
pudgy fist. "When I'm through with him he'll never have to be fired
again--not on this division. Still looking for an emergency to rise
to, eh? Well, I'll accommodate him! He'll run up against the hottest
emergency to-morrow morning he ever heard of!"

And Regan was right--that was exactly what Sammy Durgan did. Only it
wasn't quite the sort of emergency that Regan----But just a moment till
the line's clear, there go the cautionaries against us.

If it had been any other kind of a switch it would never have
happened--let that be understood from the start. And how it ever came
to be left on the main line when modern equipment was installed is a
mystery, except perhaps that as it was never used it was therefore
never remembered by anybody. Neverthel