A

.007

LOCOMOTIVE is, next to a marine engine,

the most sensitive thing man ever made; and No. .007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumperbar, his headlight shone like a fireman's helmet, and his cab might have been a hard-wood-finish parlour. They had run him into the round-house after his trial- he had said good-bye to his best friend in the shops, the overhead travelling-crane the big world was just outside; and the other locos were taking stock of him. He looked at the semicircle of bold, unwinking headlights, heard the low purr and mutter of the steam mounting in the gauges scornful hisses of contempt as a slack valve lifted a little and would have given a month's oil for leave to crawl through his own driving-wheels into the brick ash-pit beneath him. .007 was an eight-wheeled "American" loco, slightly different from others of his type, and as he stood he was worth ten thousand dollars on the Company's books. But if you had bought him at his own valuation, after half an hour's waiting in the

darkish, echoing round-house, you would have saved exactly nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents.

A heavy Mogul freight, with a short cow-catcher and a fire-box that came down within three inches of the rail, began the impolite game, speaking to a Pittsburgh Consolidation, who was visiting.

"Where did this thing blow in from?" he asked, with a dreamy puff of light steam.

"It's all I can do to keep track of our makes," was the answer, "without lookin' after your backnumbers. 'Guess it's something Peter Cooper left over when he died."

.007 quivered; his steam was getting up, but he held his tongue. Even a hand-car knows what sort of locomotive it was that Peter Cooper experimented upon in the far-away Thirties. It carried. its coal and water in two apple-barrels, and was not much bigger than a bicycle.

Then up and spoke a small, newish switchingengine, with a little step in front of his bumpertimber, and his wheels so close together that he looked like a bronco getting ready to buck.

"Something's wrong with the road when a Pennsylvania gravel-pusher tells us anything about our stock, I think. That kid's all right. Eustis designed him, and Eustis designed me. Ain't that good enough?"

.007 could have carried the switching-loco round

the yard in his tender, but he felt grateful for even this little word of consolation.

"We don't use hand-cars on the Pennsylvania," said the Consolidation. "That-er- peanutstand's old enough and ugly enough to speak for himself."

"He hasn't bin spoken to yet. He's bin spoke at. Hain't ye any manners on the Pennsylvania?" said the switching-loco.

"You ought to be in the yard, Poney," said the Mogul, severely. "We're all long-haulers here."

"That's what you think," the little fellow replied. “You'll know more 'fore the night's out. I've bin down to Track 17, and the freight there - oh, Christmas!"

"I've trouble enough in my own division," said a lean, light suburban loco with very shiny brakeshoes. "My commuters wouldn't rest till they got a parlour-car. They've hitched it back of all, and it hauls worse'n a snow-plough. I'll snap her off some day sure, and then they'll blame every one except their fool-selves. They'll be askin' me to haul a vestibuled next!"

"They made you in New Jersey, didn't they?" said Poney. "Thought so. Commuters and truck-wagons ain't any sweet haulin', but I tell you they're a heap better'n cuttin' out refrigerator-cars or oil-tanks. Why, I've hauled—"

"Haul! You?" said the Mogul, contemptuously. "It's all you can do to bunt a cold-storage car up the yard. Now, I-" he paused a little to let the words sink in-"I handle the Flying Freight-e-leven cars worth just anything you please to mention. On the stroke of eleven I pull out; and I'm timed for thirty-five an hour. Costly-perishable-fragile-immediate-that's me! Suburban traffic's only but one degree better than switching. Express freight's what pays." Well, I ain't given to blowing, as a rule," began the Pittsburgh Consolidation.

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"No? You was sent in here because you grunted on the grade," Poney interrupted.

"Where I grunt, you'd lie down, Poney: but, as I was saying, I don't blow much. Notwithstandin', if you want to see freight that is freight moved lively, you should see me warbling through the Alleghanies with thirty-seven ore-cars behind me, and my brakemen fightin' tramps so 's they can't attend to my tooter. I have to do all the holdin' back then, and, though I say it, I've never had a load get away from me yet. No, sir. Haulin''s one thing, but judgment and discretion 's another. You want judgment in my business."

"Ah! But - but are you not paralysed by a sense of your overwhelming responsibilities?" said a curious, husky voice from a corner.

"Who's that?" .007 whispered to the Jersey

commuter.

Compound — experiment—N. G. She's bin switchin' in the B. & A. yards for six months, when she wasn't in the shops. She's economical (I call it mean) in her coal, but she takes it out in repairs. Ahem! I presume you found Boston somewhat isolated, madam, after your New York season?"

“I am never so well occupied as when I am alone." The Compound seemed to be talking from half-way up her smoke-stack.

"Sure," said the irreverent Poney, under his breath. "They don't hanker after her any in the yard."

"But, with my constitution and temperament -my work lies in Boston - I find your outrecuidance"

"Outer which?" said the Mogul freight. "Simple cylinders are good enough for me."

Perhaps I should have said faroucherie," hissed the Compound.

"I don't hold with any make of papier-mâché wheel," the Mogul insisted.

The Compound sighed pityingly, and said no

more.

"Git 'em all shapes in this world, don't ye?” said Poney. “That's Mass'chusetts all over. They half start, an' then they stick on a dead-centre, an'