Regan went around more or less dazed all that day. He ordered the patch on 583 when he had definitely decided on the rust-joint as the best tonic for the engine’s complaint, and he figured out how much one dollar and fifteen cents a day came to for a year barring Sundays, then he did the same with a dollar twenty-five as the multiplicand and compared the results. Spitzer’s demand was not exorbitant, and it wasn’t much to upset any man--that was just it--it was Spitzer, and Spitzer wasn’t much. Effect, psychological or otherwise, is by no manner of means to be measured by the mere magnitude of the cause, it is the phenomenal and unusual that is to be treated with wholesome respect, and for safe handling requires a double-tracked, block system with the cautionary signals up from start to finish--the master mechanic found it that way anyhow, and he ought to know. He unburdened himself that night after supper to Carleton and a few of the others over at division headquarters, which had been moved upstairs over the station, where the chiefs used to meet regularly each evening for a pipe, with a round of pedro thrown in to liven things up a bit--Big Cloud not being blessed with many attractions in the amusement line. Carleton grinned. “Bad company,” he suggested. “Hard lot, that of yours over in the roundhouse, Tommy. They’re spoiling his manners. Been a long time in coming, but you know the old story of the water and the stone. What?” “What in blazes would _he_ do with more money?” inquired Spence, the chief dispatcher, in unfeigned astonishment. Regan glared disdainfully. He had put precisely the same question to Spitzer himself, but since then he had been brushing up his mathematics. “Do with it!” he choked. “Thirty dollars and eighty cents--_a year_. Hell of a problem, ain’t it?” “Well, you needn’t run off your schedule,” said Spence, a little tartly. “You’re the one that’s making most of the fuss over it.” “Tell you what, Tommy,” remarked Carleton, still grinning, “you want to look out for Spitzer from now on. I guess his emancipation has begun--nothing like a start. Before you know it he’ll be running roughshod over the motive power department, including the master mechanic.” “I give him the raise,” said Regan, more to himself than aloud. “‘Twas coming to him, what? Four years, and the first time I ever heard a yip out of him.” “You’ll hear more,” prophesied Carleton; “even if he doesn’t talk very loud.” “Think so?” said Regan, puckering up his eyes. “I do,” said Carleton. And Regan did. Not at once, not for several weeks. But in the meantime a change came over Spitzer. He swept and wiped and reported at five minutes of seven every morning and kept himself just as much in the background, just as much out of everybody’s way, just as unobtrusive as he had before, but Spitzer was none the less changed.