“I am glad to have met you, sir. Good-night, sir,” and Mr. Grady had shut the window. There was the smash, clang, and thud of making up a train. A negro guided me to the lantern of a freight conductor. The conductor had the lean frame, the tight jaw, the fox nose, the Chinese skin of a card-shark. He would have made a name for himself on the Spanish Main, some centuries since, by the cool way he would have snatched jewels from ladies’ ears and smiled when they bled. He did not smile now. He gripped his lantern like a cutlass, and the cars groaned. They were gentlemen in armor compelled to walk the plank by this pirate with the apple-green eyes. We will call him Mr. Shark. I put my pious letter into my pocket. “Mr. Shark, I would like to ride to Macon in the caboose.” Mr. Shark thrust his lantern under my hat-brim. I had no collar, but was not ashamed of that. He said, “I have met men like you before.” He turned down the track shouting orders. I jumped in front of him. I said, “You are mistaken. You have not met a man like me before. I am the goods. I am the wise boy from New York. I have been walking in every swamp in Florida, eating dead pig for breakfast, water-moccasins for lunch, alligators for dinner. I would like to tell you my adventures.” Mr. Shark ignored me, and went on persecuting the train. Valdosta was a depot in the midst of darkness. I hated the darkness. I went into the depot. Vermont was offering Flagman the bottle. He drank. Flagman asked me: “Can’t you make it?” “No. Grady turned me down. And the conductor turned me down.” Mr. Flagman said, “The sure way to ride in a caboose like a gentleman is to ask the conductor like he is a gentleman, and everybody else is a gentleman, and when he turns you down, ask him again like a gentleman.” And much more with that refrain. It was wisdom lightly given, profounder than it seemed. Let us remember the tired flagman, and engrave the substance of his saying on our souls. I sought the pirate again. I took off my hat. I bowed like Don Cæsar De Bazan, but gravely. “I ask you, just as one gentleman to another, to take me to Macon. I have friends in Macon.” Mr. Shark showed a pale streak of smile. “Come around at one o’clock.” My “Thank you” was drowned by a late passenger. It came from Fargo, for Napoleon III dismounted. He said: “Hello. Where are you going, boy?” “I am just taking the caboose of the through freight for Macon. But I have a few minutes.” “How the devil did you get here, sir?” I told him the story in brief. We were in front of the fire now. “How are you going to make this next train? I would like to go with you.”