hing, Beezer took it pretty well--he went around as
though he had boils.

But if Beezer had a grouch, and cause for one, it didn't make the other
fellow's job look any the less good to Beezer. Mrs. Beezer's sharp
tongue, barbed with contemptuous innuendo that quite often developed
into pointed directness as to her opinion of his opinions, and the kind
of an engineer he'd make, which he was obliged to listen to at night,
and the men--who didn't know what an innuendo was--that he was obliged
to listen to by day, didn't alter Beezer's views on that subject any,
whatever else it might have done. Beezer had a streak of stubbornness
running through the boils.

He never got to blows again. His tormentors took care of that. They
had MacAllister as an example that Beezer was not averse to bringing
matters to an intimate issue at any time, and what they had to say they
said at a safe distance--most of them could run faster than Beezer
could, because nature had made Beezer short. Beezer got to be a pretty
good shot with a two-inch washer or a one-inch nut, and he got to
carrying around a supply of ammunition in the hip pocket of his
overalls.

As for MacAllister, when the two ran foul of each other, as the
engineer came on for his runs or signed off at the end of one, there
wasn't any talking done. Regan had warned them a little too hard to
take chances. They just looked at each other sour enough to turn a
whole milk dairy. The men told Beezer that MacAllister had rigged a
punching bag up in his back yard, and was taking a correspondence
course in pugilism.

Beezer said curried words.

"Driving an engine," said they, "is a dog's life; it's worse than
pick-slinging, there's nothing in it. Why don't you cut it out?
You've had enough experience to get a job in the _shops_. Why don't
you hit Regan up and change over?"

"By Christmas!" Beezer would roar, while he emptied his pocket and gave
vent to mixed metaphor, "I'd show you a change over if I ever got a
chance; and I'd show you there was something to running an engine
besides bouncing up and down on the seat like balls with nothing but
wind in them, and grinning at the scenery!"

A chance--that's all Beezer asked for--a chance. And he kept on asking
Regan. That dollar-ten a day looked worse than ever since Mrs.
Beezer's invasion of Mrs. MacAllister's kitchen. But Regan was
obdurate, and likewise was beginning to get his usually complacent
outlook on life--all