eton one day in the super's office,
about a month after P. Walton's advent to Big Cloud.

"I said he was a queer card the first minute I clapped eyes on him,"
observed the master mechanic. "And I think so now--only more so. What
in blazes does a white man want to go and live in a two-room pigsty,
with a family of Polacks and about eighteen kids, for?"

Carleton tamped down the dottle in his pipe with his forefinger
musingly.

"How much a week, Tommy," he inquired, "is thirty dollars a month, with
about a third of the time out for sick spells?"

"I'm not a mathematician," growled the little master mechanic. "About
five dollars, I guess."

"It's a good guess," said Carleton quietly. "He bought new clothes you
remember with the ten I gave him--and he needed them badly enough."
Carleton reached into a drawer of his desk, and handed Regan an
envelope that was torn open across the end. "I found this here this
afternoon after the paycar left," he said.

Regan peered into the envelope, then extracted two five-dollar gold
pieces and a note. He unfolded the note, and read the two lines
written in a hand that looked like steel-plate engraving.

With thanks and grateful appreciation.

P. WALTON.

Regan blinked, handed the money, note, and envelope back to Carleton,
and fumbled a little awkwardly with his watch chain.

"He's the best hand with figures and his pen it's ever been my luck to
meet," said Carleton, kind of speculatively. "Better than Halstead; a
whole lot better. Halstead's going back East in a couple of weeks into
the general office--got the offer, and I couldn't stand in his way. I
was thinking of giving P. Walton the job, and breaking some young
fellow in to relay him when he's sick. What do you think about it,
Tommy?"

"I think," said Regan softly, "he's been getting blamed few eggs and
less fresh air than he ought to have had, trying to make good on that
loan. And I think he's a better man than I thought he was. A fellow
that would do that is white enough not to fall very far off the right
of way. I guess you won't make any mistake as far as trusting him
goes."

"No," said Carleton, "I don't think I will."

And therein Carleton and Regan were both right and wrong. P. Walton
wasn't--but just a minute, we're over-running our holding orders--P.
Walton is in the block ahead.

The month hadn't helped P. Walton much physically, even if it had
helped him more than he, perhaps, realized