"Didn't know the old granger was any special friend o' yours, kid. He wasn't over-civil to you last time I saw him." "I know it; but I've seen a wreck since then, and it has about scared the paint off me. I'm not going to guy any one as long as I steamnot when they're new to the business an' anxious to learn. And I'm not goin' to guy the old Mo gul either, though I did find him wreathed around with roastin'-ears. 'Twas a little bit of a shote -not a hog-just a shote, Poney - no bigger'n a lump of anthracite-I saw it that made all the mess. Anybody can be ditched, I guess." "Found that out already, have you? Well, that's a good beginnin'." It was the Purple Emperor, with his high, tight, plate-glass cab and green-velvet cushion, waiting to be cleaned for his next day's fly. “Let me make you two gen'lemen acquainted," said Poney. This is our Purple Emperor, kid, whom you were admirin' and, I may say, envyin' last night. This is a new brother, worshipful sir, with most of his mileage ahead of him, but, so far as a serving-brother can, I'll answer for him." "Happy to meet you," said the Purple Emperor, with a glance round the crowded roundhouse. “I guess there are enough of us here to form a full meetin'. Ahem! By virtue of the authority vested in me as Head of the Road, I hereby declare and pronounce No. .007 a full and accepted Brother of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotives, and as such entitled to all shop, switch, track, tank, and round-house privileges throughout my jurisdiction, in the Degree of Superior Flier, it bein' well known and credibly reported to me that our Brother has covered fortyone miles in thirty-nine minutes and a half on an errand of mercy to the afflicted. At a convenient time, I myself will communicate to you the Song and Signal of this Degree whereby you may be recognised in the darkest night. Take your stall, newly entered Brother among Locomotives!" Now, in the darkest night, even as the Purple Emperor said, if you will stand on the bridge across the freight-yard, looking down upon the four-track way, at 2:30 A. M., neither before nor after, when the White Moth, that takes the overflow from the Purple Emperor, tears south with her seven vestibuled cream-white cars, you will hear, as the yard-clock makes the half-hour, a faraway sound like the bass of a violoncello, and then, a hundred feet to each word: "With a michnai - ghignai-shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah! Ein-zwei-drei - Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah! She climb upon der shteeple, Und she frighten all der people, Singin' michnai-ghignai shtingal! Yah! Yah!" That is .007 covering his one hundred and fiftysix miles in two hundred and twenty-one minutes. |