We are privileged, and we climb into the caboose of Third-118. We hold credentials to Collins, her conductor, and they are unimpeachable. We can see that from his face as he holds his lantern over them: he would not even let us into his caboose until his own mind was set. After that there was barely time to jump aboard. The 1847 is beginning to clear the yard before we have had time for a good look at the inside of the little caboose. "You won't find our hack any fancy place," says Collins. "But we've had it nine years now, and it seems kind of homelike to us after all this time." The "we" consists of Collins and his rear brakeman. The forward brakeman, who is held responsible for the front half of the train, has his headquarters in the cab of the 1847. The caboose is a home-like place, snugly warmed by a red-hot stove placed in its corner and lined with bunks made into beds, Pullman fashion; only never was there a Pullman sleeper that gave you less sense of the impressive and a greater sense of a snug cabin. Squarely placed in its centre is a sort of wooden pyramid and the steps up this lead to the lookout from where the long snaky train can be watched. "Kind o' ol'-fashioned, that," apologizes Collins. "Th' las' time I had th' cabin into the shops for over-haulin', they offered to take it out an' put in th' ladders; but I says 'no'; an' this is why." One by one he lifts its hinged steps. This is a pyramid built of lockers, a regular treasure house of railroad necessities. There are all sorts of ropes and jacks and wrenches, extra parts against every emergency. There is a food closet, and another locker filled with neat stacks of stationery. "They give us more forms to fill out now than th' super's office got twenty years ago," he laughs. "I spend more than half my time at that desk." The clerical work on Third-118 is considerable. Collins has to keep all the way-bills of his train--32 cars, almost $100,000 worth of merchandise, and if he makes a serious error it is apt to cost him his job. He writes a neat hand, and his records, like his caboose, are kept in ship-shape fashion. He is a careful student of the ethics and the practices of railroad management and operation. He has his own ideas on each of these, and when you get to them they are good ideas. Of such as he railroad executives are every year made in America. * * * * * We slip up the line, slowly threading our passage through the mass of passenger trains, fast and slow, that all times have the right-of-way over the third sections of rather ordinary freights. Collins sometimes thrusts his orders into our hands in order that we may see something of the great detail of this branch of operating. Each is wonderfully specific, and we know by that "complete" on the corner that it has been given in detail. "No. 1 Engine 2236 will wait at Morris Level until 10:00 A. M. for 3-118, Engine 1847."