I protested with all my might, in fact
was once on the point of resigning my position but the old man wouldn't
hear of either proposition, and Krantzer secured the place. Now while
Krantzer was an excellent copy operator, he was very young, and lacked
that persistence and reliability so essential in a successful
despatcher. After I had protested until I was black in the face, I asked
Mr. Antwerp at least to put the young man on the second trick, so that
in a measure I could have him under my eye. But no, nothing but the
third trick would satisfy him, so on the third trick the rattle-brained
chap went the next night.
He struggled through the first night without actually killing anybody,
but his train sheet the next morning resembled a man with a very bad
case of measles; there were delays on everything on the road, with very
few satisfactory explanations. There was the fast mail twenty-five
minutes in going six miles. Cause? None was given. But a perusal of the
order book showed that Krantzer had made a meet for her with a freight
train, and had hung her up on a blind siding for fifteen minutes.
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