“You never see anything,” Noonan blurted out, irritation getting the better of diplomacy. “Nothing but the blamed coal you’re forever yapping about.” “What I know about coal,” returned McQueen with dignity, “you’ll never know. It’s a subject that requires brains.” “Is that so!” Noonan jeered. “You tell it!” “It requires brains,” McQueen repeated stolidly. “It’s a shame that the only man on the division that has ‘em, don’t know how to use ‘em, then,” Noonan prodded. “Who cares about your blazing old coal and what it’s made of? Talk’s cheap. There’s no sense to it, anyhow.” “Maybe there isn’t, and then again maybe there is. At any rate, there’s a dollar a day for every man pulling a throttle,” McQueen announced triumphantly. “I don’t know yet just how much for the firemen, I haven’t figured it on their schedule.” Noonan pricked up his ears. “What’s that you say, Mac,” he demanded. Here was McQueen’s vindication. They’d laugh at his absurd, pointless theories on coal, would they? Well then, he’d show them! And it wasn’t any of their business, either, how many days he’d racked his brains, puzzling out an adequate solution to the question Clarihue had flung at him! He shook two impressive fat fingers at Noonan. “One dollar a day, every day, and the spare men proportionately, that’s what! Do you get that, Noonan?” “Rats!” said Noonan. “You’d better go into the shops for repairs. You need new stay-bolts on your dome cover!” “Never you mind my dome cover,” McQueen flung back, beginning to get exasperated. “It may need a little tinkering, but it’s not ready for the scrap-heap yet, the way some are I could mention--but won’t. It all goes back to what I said. It’s a subject that requires brains--which you haven’t got. There’s no use explaining anything to you because----” “You can’t,” Noonan interrupted craftily. “You’re only long on wind, Mac.” “You listen to me, you rust-jointed disgrace to the throttle!” cried McQueen, stung into retort. “You listen to me! What are you paid for? Mileage, ain’t it? How do you get your mileage? Steam! What makes steam? Coal! D’ye hear? Coal! Coal, and don’t you forget it. Well then, poor coal means poor steam, and poor steam means poor mileage, don’t, it, what?” Noonan burst into a loud and derisive guffaw. McQueen glared. “You’re a wild, uneducated, hee-hawing ass!” he choked. “What do you know, anyway? Nothing! But _I_ know! A dollar a day I said, and I say so now. I figured it out. It’s the difference between high grade coal and the muck we burn. It’s the difference between the mileage we make and the mileage we _could_ make in the same time. That totes up one dollar a day. Supposing they wouldn’t let us have any more mileage than they do now, well, we’d do it in better time, and the difference would be ours, wouldn’t it? And time’s money. And _that_ totes up one dollar a day just the same. It’s the same either way--time or mileage. Take your choice!”