"I think the through one way is thirty-four sixteen," he smiles at the patrons, "but I had better look up and make sure." His memory was right--but Blinks takes no chances. "Can we get a stop-over at Urbana?" asks the woman. The station agent dives into a tariff, after a moment nods "yes." "Wonder if we could go around by Jefferson City and stop off there?" inquires the man, "I've relatives there." Blinks starts to say "yes," then hesitates. Wasn't there a special bulletin issued by the Missouri Pacific covering that detour? or was it the Katy? He finds his way through twenty or thirty tariff supplements. He knows that if he makes a mistake he not only will be censured, but will probably be forced to make good the mistake from his own pocket--according to the ruling of the Interstate Commerce Law, which he feels is yet to be his nemesis. Number Four is almost near enough to hear the hissing of her valves but he tells his patrons not to worry--she has a deal of express matter to handle this morning and will tarry two or three minutes at the station. He finds the right ticket forms, clips and pastes them, stamps and punches them, until he has two long green and yellow contracts each calling for the passage of a person from his town to Muskogee. Incidentally he finds time to sell a little sheaf of travelers' checks and an accident insurance policy in addition to promising to telegraph down to the junction to reserve Pullman space. In six or seven minutes he has completed an important passenger transaction, with rare accuracy. Rare accuracy, did we say? We were mistaken. That sort of accuracy is common among the station agents of America. When the nervous, hurried, accurate transaction is done you might expect Blinks to rail against the judgment of travelers who wait until the last minute to buy tickets involving a trip over a group of railroads. But that is not the way of Blinks. "I could have sent them down to the junction on a local ticket and let them get their through tickets there. But I like those tickets on my receipt totals and I'm rather proud of the fact that they've made this a coupon station. My rival here on the R---- road has to send down to headquarters for blank tickets and a punch whenever he hears in advance of a party that's going to make a trip and a clerk down there figures out the rate. We make our own rates and folks know they can get through tickets at short notice." That means business and Blinks knows that it means business. "But he almost had me stumped on that alternative route via Jefferson City," he laughs. "They catch us up mighty quickly these days if we make mistakes of that sort."