Perhaps that president had a boy of the same size--they always do in stories; and perhaps--this being reality--he did not. But he stopped there for three precious hours, at that busy division point, while he sent orders broadcast to find the boy, orders that went with big authority because they came from the high boss himself. He was late at the conference, because that search was taking his mind and his attention. He hung for hours at a long-distance telephone, personally directing the boy-hunt with his marvellously fertile and resourceful mind. When action came entirely too slowly he ordered the men out of the shops and all interchange freight halted, until every one of 12,000 or 14,000 box cars had been opened and searched. Finally, from one of these they drew forth the limp and almost lifeless body of a small boy. The railroad chief died a little while ago and was buried in a city 500 miles away from the line that he had controlled. The track-hands of his line, with that delicate sensibility that is part and parcel of the Italian, dug deep into their scanty savings and hired a special train, that they might march in a body at his funeral. It sometimes takes a big man to do a little thing in a big way. * * * * * Here is Underwood, the railroad president who took hold of the Erie when the property was a byword and a joke, who began pouring money into it to give it real improvements and possibilities for economical handling, and made it a practical and a profitable freighter, a freighter of no mean importance at that. He once issued an order that any car on the road (no matter of what class of equipment) with a flat wheel should be immediately cut out of the train. The order was posted in every yardmaster's office up and down that system. Some time after it went into effect, Underwood was hurrying east in his private car. It was essential that he should reach Jersey City in the early morning, for he had a big day's grist awaiting him at his office. A real railroad president, working 18 hours a day, can brook few delays. But when the president awoke, his car was not in motion; the foot of his bunk was higher than the head. He looked out and found himself in a railroad yard three or four hundred miles from his office. When he got up and out he saw why his bed had been aslant. The observation end of his car was jacked up and the car-repairers were slipping a new pair of wheels underneath it. A car-tinker bossed the job and Underwood addressed him. "Who gave you authority to cut out my car?" he asked. "If you will walk over to my coop," said the car-tinker, politely, "you will find my authority in orders from headquarters to cut out any car (no matter of what class of equipment) with a flat wheel."