The Night OperatorPackard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)
General
The Night Operator
Packard, Frank L. (Frank Lucius)
Fiction; Railroad stories; Short stories
There were four men in the car: Bob Donkin, coming back from a holiday
trip somewhere up the line; MacNicoll, the baggage-master; Nulty, the
express messenger--and Hawkeye. Toddles' inventory of the contents of
the chest had been hurried--but intimate. A small bunch of six bananas
was gone, and Hawkeye was munching them unconcernedly. It wasn't the
first time the big, hulking, six-foot conductor had pilfered the boy's
chest, not by many--and never paid for the pilfering. That was
Hawkeye's idea of a joke.
Hawkeye was talking to Nulty, elaborately simulating ignorance of
Toddles' presence--and he was talking about Toddles.
"Sure," said Hawkeye, his mouth full of banana, "he'll be a great
railroad man some day! He's the stuff they're made of! You can see it
sticking out all over him! He's only selling peanuts now till he grows
up and----"
Toddles put down his basket and planted himself before the conductor.
"You pay for those bananas," said Toddles in a low voice--which was
high.
"When'll he grow up?" continued Hawkeye, peeling more fruit. "I don't
know--you've got me. The first time I saw him two years ago, I'm
hanged if he wasn't bigger than he is now--guess he grows backwards.
Have a banana?" He offered one to Nulty, who refused it. "You pay for
those bananas, you big stiff!" squealed Toddles belligerently.
Hawkeye turned his head slowly and turned his little beady, black eyes
on Toddles, then he turned with a wink to the others, and for the first
time in two years offered payment. He fished into his pocket and
handed Toddles a twenty-dollar bill--there always was a mean streak in
Hawkeye, more or less of a bully, none too well liked, and whose name
on the payroll, by the way, was Reynolds.
"Take fifteen cents out of that," he said, with no idea that the boy
could change the bill.
For a moment Toddles glared at the yellow-back, then a thrill of unholy
glee came to Toddles. He could just about make it, business all around
had been pretty good that day, particularly on the run west in the
morning.
Hawkeye went on with the exposition of his idea of humor at Toddles'
expense; and Toddles went back to his chest and his reserve funds.
Toddles counted out eighteen dollars in bills, made a neat pile of four
quarters--the lead one on the bottom--another neat pile of the odd
change, and returned to Hawkeye. The lead quarter wouldn't go very far
toward liquidating Hawkeye's long-standing indebtedness--but it would
help some.
Hawkeye counted the bills carefully, and crammed them into his pocket.
Toddles dropped the neat little pile of quarters into Hawkeye's
hand--they counted themselves--and Hawkeye put those in his pocket.
Toddles counted out the odd change piece by piece, and as Hawkeye put
_that_ in his pocket--Toddles put his fingers to his nose.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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