"Will they!" exclaims Jim bitterly. "The Company'll pay you--pretty regular--while you work--and 'll work you--pretty hard--while they pay you;--that's what the Company'll do. You'd think--knowing, as they know--that Dick Hart's got a wife as is near her confinement--and knowing, as they know--that Dick Hart's wages is just enough to keep him and her--and his little girl--and that it's next to impossible--he could lay anything by--for a rainy day--you'd think, old woman--that now Dick's in trouble--the Company'd pay him his wages--till he got out of it! Catch 'em at it! That's not the Company's game. Their game is--when an accident occurs--to make out--that they're not accountable--and responsible--and that they're the victims--not us, or the public. The Company'll see to--Dick's wife--will they, old woman! Where's my pipe?" He has it in his hand, but is so engrossed in his theme that he does not know it, and Mrs. Podmore quietly takes it from him, and fills it. In truth there is another cause for Jim's agitation--a cause which he dare not speak of, which he scarcely dare think of, as he puffs away at his pipe. But it comes upon him, despite his reluctance to entertain it, and fills him with terrible fear. This very night he himself had a narrow escape from an accident. He was very tired, and even as he stood waiting to shift the points for an expected train, he fell into a dose. For how long he did not know--a second, a minute, or many--but he was suddenly aroused by a furious whirl of sound. It was the train approaching. In a very agony of fear, he rushed and adjusted the points. Just in time, thank God! Half a dozen seconds more, and it would have been too late. No one but he knew of the narrow escape of the passengers, yet the anguish of that one almost fatal moment will remain with him for many a year. It is with him now, as he smokes, and it remains with him during the night, as he holds his darling Pollypod in his arms, and thinks what would become of her if one night, when he was dead-beat, he should fall asleep again on his watch, and not wake up until it was too late. Then the fancy comes upon him that the little girl who was hurt in the accident, and who lay like dead, was something like Pollypod; and he shivers at the thought, and holds his darling closer to his breast.