And then, amid the laughter that ensued, Thornley rose dramatically from his seat, and, picking up a bone from his plate, waved it aloft. “Gentlemen, this is no time for mirth!” he cried. “We are the victims of a swindle. We are in the clutch of an octopus--that is to say, a food trust, composed of Dutchy and the dining-car conductors of Numbers One and Two. It is my painful duty to assert that I recognize this bone as the identical bone on which I fed two nights ago coming up the line on Number One.” Dutchy entered, staggering under the load of the replenished pot, when Thornley solemnly demanded a rebate on the spot. “Vat iss it?” said Dutchy, halting and peering anxiously into the pot; then, evidently reassured that no essential ingredient had been forgotten, he looked up at the ring of faces that were regarding him with grave inquiry. “Vat iss a repate?” he demanded. “It something iss mit der bread und butter for twenty cents to go, yess?” The crowd roared, and up and down the division train-crews, engine-crews, and section-gangs got the joke and passed it on until the lunch-counter became known to every man on the system as “The Rebate.” They did not explain the joke to Dutchy, and for days he endured the chaff stolidly, though with much bewilderment, until, one afternoon, MacDonald patiently and ploddingly acquainted him with the unhallowed baseness of one Thornley--helping himself, by way of compensation, to the heap of doughnuts under the glass cover. Dutchy listened, his cheeks getting redder and redder as MacDonald, exaggerating some hundredfold, suavely rubbed it in. “Dot Thornley iss--iss a pig!” shouted Dutchy suddenly, as the light burst in upon him. MacDonald nodded assent, his mouth too full of doughnut to speak. “Und I a fool iss, yess?” continued the proprietor, pounding a fat fist on the counter. Again MacDonald nodded, smiling sweetly--and reached for another doughnut. But this time Dutchy’s fingers were firmly clasped around the cover, and he peered suspiciously through the glass at the number of doughnuts remaining, then glared at the dispatcher. “You--you git out from here!” he said slowly, but with rising emphasis. And MacDonald, chuckling, went. It was not until after supper that same evening, when Number One pulled in, that Dutchy made any move toward retribution--then Dutchy cut loose. It was Taggart who got it--little Shorty Taggart, the driver of Number One, who was red-haired and an inveterate joker, and likewise a great crony of Thornley’s. The first intimation MacDonald had that anything was up was an enraged howl that, rising above the tumult of the station, reached him where he sat in the dispatcher’s office. There was no mistaking the voice--it was Dutchy’s. MacDonald stuck his head hastily out of the window, while Thornley, who was in the room, leaned over his shoulder. Dutchy was bellowing like a mad bull. “Say it! Shusht say it. Oh! py golly!”