They were sitting in the super’s office, and Carle-ton’s glance, straying out through the window from where he sat at his desk, fastened on Marley’s clumsy, ungainly figure hopping across the yard tracks from the roundhouse toward the station platform. He smiled a little and looked back at Regan. “I guess so, Tommy--if it will do her any good. I wouldn’t bank on it, though. He’s a queer card. Impresses you with the feeling that there’s something you ought to know about him--and don’t. I’ve a notion, somehow, I’ve seen him before.” “Have you?” said Regan. “That’s funny. I’ve thought I had myself once or twice, but I guess it’s imagination more than anything else. Anyway, he seems to remember what Mrs. Coogan did for him. I dunno what she’d do even now without the board money, little as it is, to help out. There’s no use borrowing trouble I suppose, but later on I dunno what on earth she’ll do. She’s prouder than a sceptered queen--and she won’t be able to wash much longer, nor take a boarder either, what?” Carleton sucked at his briar for a moment in silence. “We’ve all got to face the possibility of the scrap heap some day, Tommy,” he said soberly. “But it’s harder for a woman, I’ll admit--bitter hard. Sometimes things don’t seem just right. If you want to give Marley a small raise, go ahead.” The master mechanic nodded his head. “I think I will,” he announced. “He’s queer if you like, but that’s his own business. Never a word out of him nor a bit of trouble since----” Regan’s words stopped as though they had been chopped off with a knife. Both men, as though actuated by a single impulse, had leaped to their feet. Behind them their chairs toppled unheeded with a crash to the floor, and for an instant, as their eyes met each other’s, the color faded in their cheeks. It had come and gone like a flash--a wild, hoarse scream of rage, a brute scream, horrid, blood curdling, like the jungle howl of some maddened beast plunged in a savage, blind, all-possessing paroxysm of fury. Themselves again in a second, the master mechanic and superintendent sprang to the window. On the platform, up at the far end, the great form of Pete Boileau rocked and swayed like a drunken man, and clinging to him, his legs twined around the other’s knees, his arms locked around the baggage-master’s body just above the elbows--was Marley! Regan and Carleton gazed spellbound. There was something uncanny, inhuman about the scene--like a rabid dog that had leaped, snarling, for the throat hold. Suddenly, Marley’s legs with a quick, wriggling slide, released their hold, his whole form appeared to shrink, grow smaller, he seemed to crouch on his knees at the other’s feet, then his body jerked itself erect to its full stature with a movement swift as a loosed bowstring, his arms flew up carrying a great burden, and over his shoulders, over his head, a sprawling form hurtled through the air.