just attend to your
duties and say nothing to anybody. Remember that it is a responsible
business to have full charge of a thousand-hose-power engine and nine
boilers, and something that not many boys of seventeen are trusted to
run even for a day or two at a time."

"I know that, father, and that is why I wanted to know what to say to
the superintendent."

"I have told you all you need to say, and more, unless you are asked."

"All right, sir. I--I hope you will have good luck, father,
and--good-by."

Mr. Kendall seemed not to have heard the parting wish of his son; he
certainly did not return the good-by. And mingled with the feeling of
satisfaction at being intrusted with the care of the great engine was a
sensation of vague uneasiness on account of his father's singular
behavior.

The fireman was there before him, waiting to be let into the
boiler-room, for the engineer always kept the keys.

He was a big, brawny Yorkshire Englishman, with a scar across one cheek,
and, to add to the ugliness of his face, he had only one good eye. Over
the other he always wore a green patch.

"Hi, my lad, is thy feyther sick?" was Joe Cuttle's salutation as Larry
unlocked the door, and they went into the long boiler-room.

"No, sir," was the reply, remembering his father's wish that he say,
nothing about the matter except to the superintendent.

"I'm a little late," he continued, as he glanced at the steam gauges;
"so you will have to put on the draught and get up steam fast as you
can."

"All right, Larry. I was waiting for thee this ten minutes," said
Cuttle.

He clanged his shovel on the hard stone floor and rattled the furnace
doors, while Larry tried the steam-cocks and then let the water into the
glass gauges, as he had done many times before.

Then he unlocked the door into the engine-room and left Joe to shovel in
the coal and regulate the draughts.

The engine--or engines, for there were two of the same power whose
pistons turned the same great fly-wheel--glistened a welcome to Larry,
and it seemed to him that they looked brighter even than usual upon this
clear September morning.

He began wiping them off with a handful of cotton waste, adding, if
possible, to the polished brightness of the powerful arms and cylinders;
but, before he had finished the work, a gruff voice caused him to look
up.

"You, is it?" the voice questioned.

The speaker was a young man of twenty-three, who was employed in the
wor