whether it was a section of a bridge or a single bolt
or a pound of putty. If a man could sit down and reel off a graphic report
of what he was doing, he was the pride of the chief clerk's heart. His
doing the work properly was taken as a matter of course. Deegan was not
efficient at this, though he was assisted at times by his wife and all
three of his children, a boy and two girls. He was constantly in hot
water.

"My God!" exclaimed the chief clerk, when Eugene explained that Deegan
had thought that he might leave the bolts at the station where they
would be safe until he needed them and then sign for them when he took
them out. He ran his hands distractedly through his hair. "What do you
think of that?" he exclaimed. "He'll leave them there until he needs
them, will he? What becomes of my reports? I've got to have those
O. K.'s. You tell Deegan he ought to know better than that; he's been
long enough on the road. You tell him that I said that I want a signed
form for everything consigned to him the moment he learns that it's
waiting for him. And I want it without fail. Let him go and get it. The
gall! He's got to come to time about this, or something's going to drop.
I'm not going to stand it any longer. You'd better help him in this.
I've got to make out my reports on time."

Eugene agreed that he would. This was his field. He could help Deegan.
He could be really useful.

Time passed. The weather grew colder, and while the work was interesting
at first, like all other things it began after a time to grow
monotonous. It was nice enough when the weather was fine to stand out
under the trees, where some culvert was being built to bridge a small
rivulet or some well to supply the freight engines with water, and
survey the surrounding landscape; but when the weather grew colder it
was not so nice. Deegan was always interesting. He was forever raising a
ruction. He lived a life of hard, narrow activity laid among boards,
wheelbarrows, cement, stone, a life which concerned construction and had
no particular joy in fruition. The moment a thing was nicely finished
they had to leave it and go where everything would be torn up again.
Eugene used to look at the wounded ground, the piles of yellow mud, the
dirty Italians, clean enough in their spirit, but soiled and gnarled by
their labor, and wonder how much longer he could stand it. To think that
he, of all men, should be here working with Deegan and the _guineas_! He
bec