nst me--and now my wife.
But you wait. Once in the life of every man he gets his chance. Mine
ain't come yet. But you wait! It's the man who rises to an emergency
that counts, and----"

There was a gurgling sound from Mrs. Durgan's throat. Then the window
slammed down--hard.

Sammy Durgan stared, stared a little blankly as the lamp retreated from
the window and the front of the house grew black.

"I guess," said Sammy Durgan a little wistfully to himself, "I guess
I'm fired all around for fair." He turned and walked slowly out to the
street and headed downtown toward the railroad yards. And as he walked
he communed with himself somewhat bitterly: "Any blamed little thing
that comes up, that, if 'twere anybody else, nobody'd pay any attention
to it, and everybody yells 'fire Sammy Durgan.' That's me----'fire
Sammy Durgan.' And why? Because I never get a chance--that's why!"
Sammy Durgan grew earnest in his soliloquy. "Some day," said he, as he
reached the station platform, "I'll show 'em--I'll show Maria! It'll
come, every man gets his chance. Give me the chance to rise to an
emergency, that's all I ask--just give me that and I'll show 'em!"

Sammy Durgan walked up the deserted platform with no very definite
destination in view, and stopped abruptly in front of the freight shed
as he suddenly remembered that it was very late. He sat down on the
edge of the platform, and kicked at the main-line rail with the toe of
his boot. Sammy Durgan was bedless, penniless, wifeless and jobless.
It was a very black night indeed for Sammy Durgan.

Sammy Durgan's mind catalogued those in authority in Big Cloud in whose
gift a job was, and he went over the list--but it did not take him
long, as he had need to hesitate over no single name. Big Cloud and a
job for Sammy Durgan were separated by a great gulf. Sammy Durgan,
however, his perennial optimism gaining the ascendancy again, found
solace even in that fact. In view of his present marital difficulties
a job in Big Cloud would be an awkward thing anyhow. In fact, for the
first time in his life, he would have refused a job in Big Cloud.
Sammy Durgan had a certain pride about him. Given the opportunity, the
roundhouse, the shops, the yards, and the train crews, once they
discovered the little impasse that had arisen in the Durgan family,
might be safely trusted to make capital out of it--at his expense.

Sammy Durgan's mind in search of a job went further afiel