humour, that he thought he would keep them for a rainy day. It was
much simpler to go from General Manager to fireman than vice versa,
and it might be that he would need the suit again. It pleased him
to hear his wife sniff contemptuously.

David Cable had been a wayward, venturesome youth. His father and
mother had built their hopes high with him as a foundation, and he
had proved a decidedly insecure basis; for one night, in the winter
of 1863, he stole away from his home in New York; before spring
he was fighting in the far Southland, a boy of sixteen carrying a
musket in the service of his country.

At the close of the Civil War Private Cable, barely eighteen, returned
to his home only to find that death had destroyed its happiness:
his father had died, leaving his widowed mother a dependant upon
him. It was then, philosophically, he realised that labour alone
could win for him; and he stuck to it with rigid integrity. In
turn, he became brakeman and fireman; finally his determination
and faithfulness won him a fireman's place on one of the fast New
York Central "runs." If ever he was dissatisfied with the work, no
one was the wiser.

Railroading in those days was not what it is in these advanced times.
Then, it meant that one was possessed of all the evil habits that
fall to the lot of man. David Cable was more or less contaminated
by contact with his rough, ribald companions of the rail, and
he glided moderately into the bad habits of his kind. He drank
and "gamboled" with the rest of the boys; but by nature not being
vicious and low, the influences were not hopelessly deadening to
the better qualities of his character. To his mother, he was always