cket. The coin that remained he put into his mouth, and bit
on it--hard. His scowl deepened. Somebody had presented Toddles with
a lead quarter.

It wasn't so much the quarter, though Toddles' salary wasn't so big as
some people's who would have felt worse over it, it was his _amour
propre_ that was touched--deeply. It wasn't often that any one could
put so bald a thing as lead money across on Toddles. Toddles' mind
harked back along the aisles of the cars behind him. He had only made
two sales that round, and he had changed a quarter each time--for the
pretty girl with the big picture hat, who had giggled at him when she
bought a package of chewing gum; and the man with the three-carat
diamond tie-pin in the parlor car, a little more than on the edge of
inebriety, who had got on at the last stop, and who had bought a cigar
from him.

Toddles thought it over for a bit; decided he wouldn't have a fuss with
a girl anyway, balked at a parlor car fracas with a drunk, dropped the
coin back into his pocket, and went on into the combination baggage and
express car. Here, just inside the door, was Toddles', or, rather, the
News Company's chest. Toddles lifted the lid; and then his eyes
shifted slowly and travelled up the car. Things were certainly going
badly with Toddles that night.

There were four men in the car: Bob Donkin, coming back from a holiday
trip somewhere up the line; MacNicoll, the baggage-master; Nulty, the
express messenger--and Hawkeye. Toddles' inventory of the contents of
the chest had been hurried--but intimate. A small bunch of six bananas
was gone, and Hawkeye was munching them unconcernedly. It wasn't the
first time the big, hulking, six-foot conductor had pilfered the boy's
chest, not by many--and never paid for the pilfering. That was
Hawkeye's idea of a joke.

Hawkeye was talking to Nulty, elaborately simulating ignorance of
Toddles' presence--and he was talking about Toddles.

"Sure," said Hawkeye, his mouth full of banana, "he'll be a great
railroad man some day! He's the stuff they're made of! You can see it
sticking out all over him! He's only selling peanuts now till he grows
up and----"

Toddles put down his basket and planted himself before the conductor.

"You pay for those bananas," said Toddles in a low voice--which was
high.

"When'll he grow up?" continued Hawkeye, peeling more fruit. "I don't
know--you've got me. The first time I saw him two years ago, I'm
han