flashed by his window as the mile-posts
flashed in the early days, for the line had been double-tracked so that
the electric-lighted hotels on wheels passed up and down regardless of
opposing trains. All these changes had been wrought in a single
generation; and Henry felt that he had contributed, according to his
light, to the great work.

But the more he pondered the perfection of the service, the comfort of
travel, the magnificence of the Wildwood Limited, the more he dreaded
the day when he must take his little personal effects from the cab of
the La Salle and say good-bye to her, to the road, and hardest of all,
to the "old man," as they called the master-mechanic.

One day when Henry was registering in the round-house, he saw a letter
in the rack for him, and carried it home to read after supper.

When he read it, he jumped out of his chair. "Why, Henry!" said his
wife, putting down her knitting, "what ever's the matter,--open switch
or red light?"

"Worse, Mary; it's the end of the track."

The old engineer tossed the letter over to his wife, sat down, stretched
his legs out, locked his fingers, and began rolling his thumbs one over
the other, staring at the stove.

When Mrs. Hautman had finished the letter she stamped her foot and
declared it an outrage. She suggested that somebody wanted the La Salle.
"Well," she said, resigning herself to her fate, "I bet I have that
coach-seat out of the cab,--it'll make a nice tete-a-tete for the front
room. Superannuated!" she went on with growing disgust. "I bet you can
put any man on the first division down three times in five."

"It's me that's down, Mary,--down and out."

"Henry Hautman, I'm ashamed of you! you know you've got four years come
Christmas--why don't you fight? Where's your Brotherhood you've been
paying money to for twenty years? I bet a 'Q' striker comes and takes
your engine."

"No, Mary, we're beaten. I see how it all happened now. You see I began
at twenty when I was really but sixteen; that's where I lose. I lied to
the 'old man' when we were both boys; now that lie comes back to me, as
a chicken comes home to roost."

"But can't you explain that now?"

"Well, not easy. It's down in the records--it's Scripture now, as the
'old man' would say. No, the best I can do is to take my medicine like a
man; I've got a month yet to think it over."

After that they sat in silence, this childless couple, trying to fashion
to themselves how it woul