d. The only decent thing old
John 'll ever do will be to die--h'm? About a week of it would finish
me. Bradley? Yes; he's hung on there quite a spell. Pretty good man,
Martin. I dunno what Mrs. MacQuigan would do without him. Guess
that's why he stays. I'm going to give Martin an engine one of these
days. That'll help out some. When? When his turn comes. First
chance I get. I can't poison anybody off to make room for him--can I?"

And now just a single word more, while we're getting back the
"complete," to say that this had been going on for two or three years;
Martin Bradley boarding at the MacQuigans' and firing the 582; young
Reddy wiping in the roundhouse, and on the ragged edge of dismissal
every time the pay car came along; Mrs. MacQuigan at her washtubs; old
John leading his disreputable, gin-soaked life; Tommy Regan between the
devil of discipline and the deep blue sea of soft-heartedness anent the
MacQuigans' son and heir--and we're off, the tissue buttoned in our
reefer--off with a clean-swept track.

It was pay day, an afternoon in the late fall, and, growing dusk, the
switch lights in the Big Cloud yards were already beginning to twinkle
red and white and green, as Martin Bradley, from the pay car platform,
his pay check in his pocket, swung himself to the ground and pushed his
way through a group of men clustered beside the car. He had caught
sight of Regan across the spur going into the roundhouse a moment
before, and he wanted a word with the master mechanic--nothing very
important--a requisition for an extra allowance of waste. And then,
amongst the crowd, he caught sight of some one else, and smiled a
little grimly. Old John MacQuigan, as he always did on pay days, was
hovering about first one, and then another, playing good fellow and
trying to ring himself in on the invitations that would be going around
presently when the whistle blew.

Bradley, his smile thinning a little as old John, catching sight of him
in turn, sidled off, passed through the group, crossed the
turntable--and halted abruptly, just outside the big engine doors, as
Regan's voice came to him in an angry growl.

"Now mind what I say, Reddy! Once more, and you're through--for keeps.
And that's my last word. Understand?"

"Well, you needn't jump a fellow before he's done anything!" It was
Reddy MacQuigan, answering sullenly.

There was silence for a moment; then Regan's voice again, pretty cold
and even now.