Mrs. Gilleen may or may not have shared her spouse’s opinions on the subject of his illustrious descent--if she did she never put on any “airs” about it. Washing and dressing and cooking was about all one woman could manage for a household as big as hers. That’s what she said anyway, whenever any one asked her about it. And one glance at the red-headed brood that filled the front yard and swung on the front gate, whose hinges creaked in loud and bitter protest, was enough to preclude any dispute on that score. Just a little bit of a woman she was physically; but bigger practically than the whole corps of leading lights in social and domestic economy--which, come to think of it, is damning Mrs. Gilleen with faint praise, whereas too much couldn’t be said for her. However, let that go. Mrs. Gilleen _was_ practical, and she had the matter up to the engineer almost before he had the sleep washed out of his eyes. No nagging, no reproach, nothing of that kind--Mrs. Gilleen wasn’t that sort of a woman. “King,” or not, Gilleen might have been, Katie Gilleen was a _queen_, not in looks perhaps, but a queen--that’s flat. A fine woman is the finest thing in the world, and if that were said a little more often than it is maybe things generally wouldn’t be any the worse for it--which is not a plank in the platform of the Suffragettes, though it may sound like it. “Michael,” said she, “you rowed with Mr. Regan, and he fired you. Will he take you back?” Gilleen lowered the towel to his chin to catch the dripping water from his hair--he had just buried his head in the washbowl the minute before--and looked at his wife. “I wouldn’t _ask_ him, Kate,” he said shortly. Mrs. Gilleen was proud, too--but for all that she sighed. “What will you do, then, Michael?” she asked. “I dunno yet, little woman. Some of the others will give me a job, I guess. Mabbe I’ll try the train crews. I’ll hit ‘em up for something, anyway.” “But there’s ever so much less money in that”--Mrs. Gilleen’s tones were judicial, not plaintive. “I know it,” returned Gilleen; “but it’ll tide us over an’ keep the steam up till we get a chance to pull out for somewheres where a man can get an engine without a grinning fool of a master mechanic to doublecross him with the worst of it every chance he gets.” “I hope it will all come out right,” said Mrs. Gilleen, a little wistfully. “It will,” Gilleen assured her. “Don’t you worry. I’ll get after a job right away as soon as I’ve had a bite.” It came easier even than Gilleen had figured it would--such as it was--and it was about the last job Gilleen had thought of as a possibility. Things have a peculiar way of working themselves out sometimes, and, curiously enough, by means which, on the surface, are, more often than not, apparently trivial and inconsequent. Certainly, if Gilleen, on his way to the station that morning, had not run into Gleason, the yard-master, why then--but he did.