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