I come in here riding on the trucks of your mail train
about three weeks ago, and the fellers up in the roundhouse have been
lettin' me feed and snooze there. I know where all the crews live
exceptin' some of your kid glove engineers wot pulls the fast trains,
but I can soon find them out. Please give me the job, mister; I'm honest
and I'll work hard."
Something in his blunt straightforward way appealed to me and I
determined to try him. Handled right I imagined he would be a good man;
handled wrong, he would probably become a bright and shining light of
the _genus_ hobo. So I hired him, telling him his salary would be forty
dollars per month.
"Hully gee!" he exclaimed, "forty plunks a month! Well say! I won't do a
ting wid all dat mun; I'll just buy a road. Thank you mister, I'll work
so hard for you that you'll not be sorry you gave me the job. But don't
you forget that I wants to learn the tick tick business."
That night at seven o'clock he went to work, and it didn't take long to
see that he was as bright as a new dollar. He knew everything about the
division, knew all the crews and where they lived.
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