The blood rushed to Fairfax's face. He extended his hand impulsively. "There, Rainsford, you needn't go on. You are the first chap who has put out a rope to me. I did have twenty-five cents given me once, but otherwise----" "I mean it sincerely, Fairfax." "Rainsford," said the young man, with emotion in his voice, "you are a fine brand of failure." "Will you let me stand by you, Fairfax?" "Yes, indeed," said the other, "I will, but not in the way you mean. I reckon I must have felt what kind of a fellow you were or I wouldn't be here. At any rate you're the only person I wanted to see. I quite understand you can't take me back at the yards, and I don't want to drive in and out from West Albany. Could you do anything for me at the general company, Rainsford? Would they give me a job in Albany? I'd take a local though I'm up to an express." "No," said Rainsford, "you mustn't think of driving engines; I won't lift my hand to help you." "It is all I can do," returned the engineer quietly, after a second, "all I want." Then he said, "I've _got_ to have it...." "Why I'll _lend_ you enough money, Fairfax, to pay your passage to France!" "Stop!" cried the young man with emotion, "it's too late." "Nonsense," said the other warmly, Fairfax's voice and personality charming him as it charmed others. "Why, you are nothing but a big, headlong boy! You have committed a tremendous folly; you've got art at your finger tips. Are you going to sweat and stew all your life in the cab of an engine? Why, you are insane." "Stop," cried Fairfax again, "for the love of heaven...." Rainsford regarded him, fascinated. He saw in him his own lost promises, his own lost chance; it seemed to him that through this young man he might in a way buy back the lost years. "I'll _not_ stop till I have used every means to make you see the hideous mistake you're making." "Rainsford," said Antony, paling, "if you had made me this offer the day before I left Nut Street, I would have been in France by this. My God!" he murmured beneath his breath. "_How_ I would have escaped!"--checked himself with great control for so young a man and so ardent a man. He was a foot taller than his desk-bowed pale companion, and he laid his hand impulsively on his chief's shoulder. "If you can give me a _job_, Rainsford, do so, will you? I know I have no right to ask you, after the way I have treated the Company, but I am married. I have married Molly Shannon. You know her, the girl at Sheedy's." He waited a second, looking the other man in the eyes, then, with something of his old humour, he said, "There are two of us now, Rainsford, and I have got to make our living." CHAPTER XXIV