As for MacAllister, when the two ran foul of each other, as the engineer came on for his runs or signed off at the end of one, there wasn't any talking done. Regan had warned them a little too hard to take chances. They just looked at each other sour enough to turn a whole milk dairy. The men told Beezer that MacAllister had rigged a punching bag up in his back yard, and was taking a correspondence course in pugilism. Beezer said curried words. "Driving an engine," said they, "is a dog's life; it's worse than pick-slinging, there's nothing in it. Why don't you cut it out? You've had enough experience to get a job in the _shops_. Why don't you hit Regan up and change over?" "By Christmas!" Beezer would roar, while he emptied his pocket and gave vent to mixed metaphor, "I'd show you a change over if I ever got a chance; and I'd show you there was something to running an engine besides bouncing up and down on the seat like balls with nothing but wind in them, and grinning at the scenery!" A chance--that's all Beezer asked for--a chance. And he kept on asking Regan. That dollar-ten a day looked worse than ever since Mrs. Beezer's invasion of Mrs. MacAllister's kitchen. But Regan was obdurate, and likewise was beginning to get his usually complacent outlook on life--all men with a paunch have a complacent, serene outlook on life as a compensation for the paunch--disturbed a little. Beezer and his demands were becoming ubiquitous. Regan was getting decidedly on edge. "Firing," said Beezer. "Let me start in firing--there's as much in that as in fitting, and I can get along for the little while it'll be before you'll be down on your knees begging me to take a throttle." "Firing, eh!" Regan finally exploded one day. "Look here, Beezer; I've heard about enough from you. Firing, eh? There'd have been some firing done before this that would have surprised you if you hadn't been a family man! Get that? The trouble with you is that you don't know what you want or what you're talking about." "I know what I want, and I know what I'm talking about," Beezer answered doggedly; "and I'm going to keep on putting it up to you till you quit saying 'No.'" "You'll be doing it a long time, then," said Regan bluntly, laying a few inches of engine dust with blackstrap juice; "a long time, Beezer--till I'm dead." But it wasn't. Regan was wrong about that, dead wrong. It's unexplainable the way things work out sometimes! That afternoon, after a visit from Harvey, who had been promoted from division engineer to resident and assistant-chief on the Devil's Slide tunnel, Carleton sent for Regan. "Tommy," said he, as the master mechanic entered his office, "did you see Harvey?" "No," said Regan. "I didn't know he was in town."