ned to the trustees and asked what they would consider as
fulfilling the requirements of the will.

"'Any honorable employment,' answered the oldest man of the trio.

"The next day, I went to see Andy Bridges, general superintendent of the
old home road, who had been a friend of father's, and told him I wanted
to go railroading. He offered to put me in his office, but I insisted on
the footboard, and to make a long story short, was firing inside of
three weeks and running inside of three years.

"I was the proudest young prig that ever pulled a throttle. I always
loved the work and--well, you know how the first five years of it
absorbs you if you are cut out for it and like it and intend to stay at
it.

"I had been running about two years, and had paid about as much
attention to young women as I had to the subject of astronomy, until
Madelene Bridges came out of a Southern convent to make her home with
her uncle, our 'old man.'

"The first time I saw her I went clean, stark, raving, blind, drunken
daft over her. I tried to argue and reason myself out of it, but it was
no go. I didn't even know who she was then.

"But I was in love and, being so, wasn't hardly safe on the road.

"Then I spruced up and started in to see if I couldn't interest her in
me half as much as I was interested in her.

"I didn't have much trouble to get a start, for Andy Bridges had come up
from the ranks and hadn't forgotten it--most of 'em do--and welcomed any
decent young man in his house, even if he was a car hand. Madelene had a
couple of marriageable cousins then and that may account for old Andy.

"I got on pretty well at first, for I was first in the field. I got in a
theatre or two before the other young fellows caught on. About this time
there was a dance, and I lost my grip. I took Madelene but couldn't
dance, and all the others could, especially Dandy Tamplin, one of the
train despatchers.

"I took private dancing lessons, however, and squared myself that way.

"Singing was a favorite mode of passing the evenings with the young
folks at the Bridges's home, and I cursed myself for being tuneless.

"It finally settled down to a race between Tamplin and myself, and each
of us was doing his level best. I was so dead in earnest and so truly in
love that I was no fit company for man or beast, and I'm afraid I was
twice as awkward and dull in Madelene's presence as in any other place.

"Dandy Tamplin was a handsome young fellow,