"We do a business of $50,000 a month," he says quietly, "which is as much as any two industries here--and this time I'm making no exceptions of the paper mill or the collar factory." Quickly he explains that this is no unusual figure. And figures do not always indicate. Smithville, up on another division, is only a third as large and does a business of $20,000 a month. There are paper mills here and inasmuch as they handle their products in carload lots on their own sidings there is need of a large force around the station. On the other hand, a neighboring town of the same size shows about the same monthly revenue and needs a station force much larger than Blinks's. For its leading industry is a paint factory, without siding facilities. Its products move in comparatively small individual boxes, requiring individual care and handling--that is the answer. "You work long hours and hard hours?" you may demand of Blinks. He shakes his head slowly. "Long hours a good deal of the time, but not very often hard hours," he tells you. "My work is complicated and diverse but it is largely a case of having it organized." Indeed it is complicated and diverse. There are only four passenger trains each day up and down the line, but the rush of freight is heavy, particularly at certain seasons of the year. And both of these functions of the railroad as they relate to Blinks's town come under his watchful eye. In addition, remember that he is the express agent and is paid a commission both on the business bound in and on the business bound out of his office, as well as the representative of the telegraph company. The telegraph company pays him nothing for handling its messages, but from the express company he will probably average forty-five dollars a month, particularly as his brisk county-seat town is one in which the small-package traffic does not greatly vary at any season of the year. Down in the Southwest, where a great amount of foodstuffs moves out by express within a very few weeks there are men who may, in two months, take several hundred dollars, perhaps a check into four figures from the express company. The gateway to a summer resort is regarded as something of the same sort of a bonanza to the station agent. Still Blinks, if he would, could tell you of a man at a famous resort gateway who lost his job through it. The president of his road was a stickler for appearances. On a bright summer day when vacation traffic was running at flood tide, his car came rolling into the place. Word of it came to the station agent, but the station agent was lost in an avalanche of express way-bills. He should have been out on the platform in his pretty new cap and uniform. At least that was what the president thought. So nowadays that station agent gives all his time to the express way-bills. There is a new man for the cap and uniform, and when the president of that railroad arrives in the town he is greeted with sufficient formality.