"And there's to be promotion for a certain young fellow we know," proceeded Phineas, ignoring his remarks utterly. "One of the bosses of a section down by Milaflores locks got his thumb jammed in a gear wheel a week back, and the chief has been looking round to replace him. You've been selected." Jim's eyes enlarged and brightened at once. He was such a newcomer to the canal zone that promotion had seemed out of the question for a long time to come. He told himself many a time that he was content to work on as he was and wait like the rest for advancement. "The wages are really good," he had said to Sadie, "and after I've paid everything there is quite a nice little sum over at the end of the week. I'm putting it by against a rainy day." And here was promotion! By now he had learned the scale of wages and salaries that were paid all along the canal. Such matters were laid down definitely, and were decidedly on the liberal side. With a flush of joy he realized that, as chief of a section, he would be in receipt of just double the amount he had had when working the rock drill. "And of course there'll be compensation for the accident, just the same as in the case of any other employee," added Phineas, trying to appear as if he had not noticed the tears of joy which had risen to Jim's eyes. For who is there of his age, imbued with the same keenness, with greater responsibilities on his young shoulders than falls to the lot of the average lad, who would not have gulped a little and felt unmanned by such glorious news? Consider the circumstances of our hero's life for some little time past. It had been a struggle against what had at times seemed like persistent bad fortune. First his father ruined, then the whole family compelled to leave their home and drift on the Caribbean. The loss of his father and then of his brother had come like final blows which, as it were, drove the lessons of his misfortunes home to Jim. And there was Sadie, at once a comfort and an anxiety. Jim alone stood between her and charity. "There'll be compensation for the accident," continued Phineas, "and reward from the Commissioners for saving that train of passenger cars. You've got to remember that it is cheaper any day to smash up a spoil train than it is to wreck one carrying people. One costs a heap more to erect than the other. So there you saved America a nice little sum. I needn't say that if the people aboard had been killed, compensation would have amounted to a big figure. So the Commission has received powers from Washington to pay over 500 dollars. I rather think that'll make a nice little nest egg against the day you get married."