The foiled Sullivans presently followed us here. They made a group at the base of a maple on the lawn and, affecting not to notice us, talked in a large, loud way so that we must overhear and be made envious,--even awe-struck; for they had all secured jobs on the real railroad, it appeared. They would have to begin to-morrow, probably. They didn't know for sure, but they thought it would be to-morrow. It would be fine, riding off on the big train. Probably they would never come back to this town, but sleep on their big engine every night; and every day, from the toothsome dainties of the train-boy Sullivan's basket, they would "eat all they could hold." The elder Sullivan, aged eight, he of the artistic temperament, here soared dizzily into the farthest ether of romance. He had his uniform at home, at that very moment, and a cap with "gold reading" on it--it read "Conductor" on one side, and "Candy" on the other. Only--this veritably smacked of genius--the blue coat with the gold buttons had been made too small for him, and he'd have to wait until they sent him a larger size--"a No. 12," he said, with a careless, unseeing glance at our group. This was a stroke that had nearly done for one of us--but a moment's resistance and another of sober reflection saved him. He flashed to me a look of scorn for the clumsy fabrication. There was still a brakeman needed, it appeared,--a _good_ brakeman. The Sullivans consulted importantly, wondering if "a good man" could by any chance be found "around here." They named and rejected several possible candidates--other boys that we knew. And they wondered again. No--probably every one around here was afraid to leave home, or wouldn't be strong enough. I held my breath, perceiving at once, the villany on foot. They were trying to lure one of us into a trap. They wished one of us to leap forward with a glad, eager, artless shout--"_I'll_ be the other brakeman!" At once they would jeer coarsely, slapping one another's backs and affecting the utmost merriment that this one of us should have been equal to so monstrous a pretension. This would last a long time. They would take up other matters only for the sake of coming back to it with sudden explosions of contemptuous mirth. Happily, the one of us most liable to this ignominy remained unbelieving to the bitter end; even did he pretend to a yawning sort of interest in a book carelessly picked up. The Sullivans had been foiled at every turn, and now we were relieved from the covert but not less pointed insult of their presence.