“Is that so?” said the old man, as he stood rubbing his face with a crash towel till it shone like a boiled lobster. “You are hurrying your railroad career mighty fast, and if you are not careful you will replace Chauncey Depew before you get long pants on. Now, you go get your clothes on and come to breakfast, and after breakfast I will tell you something.” The boy dropped the key, after ticking to the imaginary general office not to disturb him with any messages for half an hour, as he was going to be busy on an important matter, and he went to his room and soon appeared at the breakfast table, and after the breakfast was over, and the old man had lighted his pipe, the boy said: “Now, Uncle Ike, tell me all you know about railroading in one easy lesson, for I have to go to a directors' meeting at ten, and then we are going out to look over the right of way,” and the boy ticked off a message to have his special car ready at eleven-thirty, stocked for a trip over the line. “I see you are getting well along in your railroad career, and like nine out of ten boys who want to be railroad men, you are beginning at the private car instead of the gravel train, issuing general orders instead of working in the ranks,” and the old man smoked up and thought a long time, and continued: “The successful railroad man begins at the bottom, and learns the first lesson well. Do you know how long this man Earling has been getting where he is today? Thirty-five years. More than the average age of man. The successful railroad man, if he begins telegraphing, gets so he can send or receive anything, with his eyes shut, and never makes a mistake. After a long time he gets a measly country station, where he does all kinds of work, and he is satisfied. He goes to work to increase the business of that station, to clean up around the depot, and please all the customers, as though he was going to live there all his life. He never thinks he is going to be a high official, but just makes the best of the present. Some day he is awfully surprised to be given a better station, and he hates to leave, and maybe sheds a tear as he parts with the friends he has made there. But he goes to his new place and improves it, and gets in with a new, pushing class of people, and begins to grow. He maybe works there ten years, and his work shows so the officials recognize it, and he never makes a mistake in his telegraphing, and some day they call him into headquarters during a rush, to help the train dispatcher, and then he has to move into the city and watch trains on thousands of miles of road, to see that they don't get together, as train dispatcher. He thinks that position is good enough, and he hopes they will let him alone in it, but some day he assists the superintendent, and he is so well posted they are all surprised. They wonder how that station agent got to knowing all the men on the road, and how much a train of freight cars weigh, and how many