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ifficulty in not laughing outright, for my superior officer was a man of imposing breadth, and I knew his one weakness was the love of a good meal. The contemplation of the loss of his Christmas dinner had made him forget his usual blunt, hopeful tone of speech, and adopt this dismal strain. During the long pause which followed, I knew that he was casting anxious glances at me. Finally he said, insinuatingly: "Er--er--William, during all the years that I have known you, it never occurred to me to ask you if you knew anything about cooking. But, of course, it is a foolish question to put to the assistant-superintendent of a railroad," he added deprecatingly. I was sorry to have to admit that my education in the culinary art had been sorely neglected. It must have been about two hours after partaking of our Christmas breakfast, which consisted of bread and butter, cheese and tea, that we had managed somehow to scrape together, that Fielding said to me: "Why, William, there is the conductor, and the driver, and the fireman--perhaps one of them knows enough to roast that beef in the larder. Suppose you go and interview them. There is enough meat there to make a dinner for the lot of us." The suggestion struck me as being a good one, and I wondered that I had not thought of questioning them about the matter earlier in the morning. I soon had the trio marching behind me into our car, to be examined as to what they knew of the now much-to-be-desired art of cooking. With divers sincere regrets, the conductor protested that he had not the slightest knowledge of this housewifely accomplishment. But old Joe Robbins, the driver, a sterling, dogged Yorkshire man, and one of our oldest employes to whose speech still clung a goodly smattering of the Yorkshire dialect, raised Fielding's sinking hopes by saying that although he did not know how to roast, he was pretty well posted in the art of frying. He further explained, and this time to the gratification of us all, that he had in a box, on the tender of the engine, a ten-pound turkey that he had bought up the line to take home for Christmas, and which we were quite welcome to. The only drawback to the bird was that it was frozen as hard as a rock, and would probably take a lot of thawing out. If we wished, however, he would do his best to thaw it and give us fried turkey for dinner. Fielding, after declaring that he would not forget to give the man who acted as cook tha
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