He hurried back to the office and arranged some necessary work for his clerk, took a walk through the other office, then went to the telephone and called up the superintendent of the Sunday School, who was a bookkeeper in a clothing house. He felt an intense desire to arrange for an interview with him as soon as possible. Word came back from the house that the superintendent had been called out of town by serious illness in his old home, and would not be back until Saturday. Mr. Hardy felt a disappointment more keen than the occasion seemed to warrant. He was conscious that the time was very brief. He had fully made up his mind that so far as in him lay he would redeem his selfish past and make a week such as few men ever made. He was just beginning to realise that circumstances are not always in our control. We are all obliged to wait for time to do some things. We cannot redeem seven years of selfishness with seven days of self-denial. The death of Scoville revealed to Mr. Hardy his powerlessness in the face of certain possibilities. He now feared that the superintendent would fail to return in time to let him confess to him his just sorrow for his lack of service in the school. He sat down to his desk and under that impulse wrote a letter that expressed in part how he felt. Then he jotted down the following items to be referred to the proper authorities of the road: _Item_ 1. The dust in the blacksmith shop and in the brass-polishing rooms is largely unnecessary. The new Englefield revolving rolling fans and elevator ought to be introduced in both departments. The cost would be but a small item to the road, and would prolong the life and add to the comfort of the employes. Very important. _Item_ 2. Organised and intelligent effort should be made by all railroad corporations to lessen Sunday work in shops and on the road. All perishable freight should be so handled as to call for the services of as few men on Sunday as possible, and excursion and passenger trains should be discontinued, except in cases of unavoidable necessity. _Item_ 3. The inspection of boilers, retorts, castings, machinery of all kinds should be made by thoroughly competent and responsible men who shall answer for all unnecessary accidents by swift and severe punishment in case of loss of life or limb. _Item_ 4. In case of injury or death to employes, if incurred through the neglect of the company to provide safety, it should provide financial relief for the families thus injured, or stricken by death, and, so far as possible, arrange for their future. _Item_ 5. Any well-organized railroad could, with profit to its employes, have upon its staff of salaried men a corps of chaplains or preachers, whose business it would be to look after the religious interests of the employes. Under this last item Mr. Hardy wrote in a footnote: "Discuss feasibility of this with Mr. B----, influential director."