You'd better tell the despatcher."
Visions of the penitentiary for criminal neglect danced before my
disordered brain; all my knowledge of telegraphy fled; I was weak in the
knees, sick at heart, and as near a complete wreck as a man could be.
But something had to be done, so I finally told the despatcher that Nos.
21 and 22 were in the ditch, and he snapped back, "D--n it, I've been
expecting it, and have ordered the wrecking outfit out from Watsego. You
turn your red-light and hold everything that comes along. In the
meantime go wake up the day man. I want an operator there, and not a
ham."
When the day man came in, half dressed, he said, "Well, what the devil
is the matter?"
Speech had entirely left me by this time, so I simply pointed to the
order, and the brakeman told him the rest. Never in all my life have I
spent such a night as that. The day man regaled me with charming little
incidents, about men he knew, who, for having been criminally negligent,
had been shot by infuriated engineers or had been sent up for ten years.
He seemed to take a fiendish delight in telling me these things and my
discomfiture was great.
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