If she had only known it I was ready by this time to have
given her the best job on the whole division, even my own, but I wasn't
going to give up without a show of resistance and I said:
"Humph! Well let's see!" Then I rang my bell and told the boy to get me
the train sheet of the sixteenth. I looked very stern and very wise as I
read the delay report to her.
"That, Miss Ross, is a very serious offense. A delay of fifty minutes to
any train is bad enough, but when it happens to a through freight it is
the worst possible. Then you say you were at the hotel for lunch. The
order book shows that the despatcher called you from two A. M. until
two-fifty A. M. Isn't that rather an unearthly hour to be going out to
lunch? My recollection of the Bentonville station is that it is a mile
from the excuse of a hotel in the place. Really, I am very sorry but I
don't see how anything can be done."
Discipline was being maintained, you see, in great shape, but all the
time I was delivering my little speech I was feeling like a big
red-headed hypocrite. Miss Ross looked up at me with those beautiful
eyes; then two big tears made their appearance on the scene, and she
sobbed out:
"Well, I know I told a fib when I made that excuse, but the despatcher
was so sharp and I was so scared when he said he had been calling me for
fifty minutes, that I told him the first thing that came into my mind.
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