“I’m,” began Spitzer shamefacedly, “I’m------” He gulped down his Adam’s apple hard, twice, and then it came away with a rush: “I’m going to get married to Merla Swenson.” Regan’s jaw sagged like the broken limb of a tree, and his eyes fairly popped out and hung down over the roll of his cheeks. Then gradually, very gradually, he began to double up and unhandsome contortions afflicted his facial muscles. Spitzer! Spitzer was enough! But Spitzer _and_ Merla Swenson! Six-foot-heavy-boned-long-armed Swedish-maiden Merla! Oh, contrariety, variety, perversity of life! “Haw!” he roared suddenly. “Haw, haw! Haw, haw, haw!” And again--only louder. The turner and a helper or two poked their noses out of the roundhouse doors to get a line on the disturbance. Can a stone float? Can a feather sink? Astonishing, bewildering, dumfounding, impossible, oh, yes; but it was also very funny. It was the funniest thing that Regan had ever heard in his life. “Haw, haw!” he screamed. “Ho, ho! Haw, haw!” His paunch shook like jelly, and he held both hands to his sides to ease the pain. He straightened up preparatory to going off into another burst of guffaws, and then, with his mouth already opened to begin, he stopped as though he had been stunned. Spitzer was still standing before him, and Spitzer’s head was turned away, but Regan caught it, caught the two big tears that rolled slowly down the grimy cheeks. And in that moment he realized what neither he nor any other man on the Hill Division had ever realized before--that Spitzer, too, was _human_. Regan coughed, choked, and cleared his throat. Here was Spitzer in a new light, but the Spitzer of years was not so readily to be consigned to the background of oblivion. Spitzer in a cab was as much an anomaly as ever, conjugal aspirations to the contrary. “Firing?” said he, with grave consideration that he meant, by contrast, should serve as palliation for the sting of his mirth. “Firing? I’m afraid not. You’re not fit for it. You’re not big enough.” Spitzer dashed his hands across his eyes. “I _can_ fire,” he announced with a surprising show of spirit, “an’ I _got_ to. There’s smaller ones than me doing it.” “What do you mean by ‘got to’?” demanded the master mechanic. Spitzer shifted uneasily and kicked at the ground. “Merla an’ me’s been making up for quite a while,” he stammered: “but she wouldn’t say nothing one way or the other till I got a raise.” “Well, you got it,” said Regan. Spitzer nodded miserably. “Yes, an’ now she says ‘tain’t enough to get married on, an’--an’ we’ll have to wait till I get firing.” “Good Lord!” murmured Regan, and he mopped his brow in deep perplexity. The destiny of mortals was in his hands--but so was the motive power department of the Hill Division. He could no more see Spitzer in a cab than he could see the time-honored camel passing through the eye of a needle. Then inspiration came to him.