“I am a reporter for The Daily Transport, sir,” he said to the agent. “Will you please tell me what orders you received about 89 this morning?” “My boy,” said the agent with great emotion, “I will tell you, but it makes my breath stop to think of it. You must understand that we have a siding here which ends on the wharf, and a fast train run on to that siding would inevitably be thrown into the river. The switch that controls it we call the north switch. Eighty-nine was due here in less than a minute when the telegraph operator handed me an order from the train dispatcher in New York. The order read:-- “‘Open the north switch and throw 89 into the river.’” “Well, sir,” the agent went on, “my heart stopped beating and my knees trembled. How many lives would I destroy if I obeyed that order? But it was only for a second. Only one man runs these trains, and that is the train dispatcher.” “And you opened the switch?” Dick asked, almost breathless with interest. “I opened the north switch,” the agent replied. “It was my duty to do it; there was the order. I hope I may never have to endure such agony again, my boy, for I expected the next minute to see the train plunged into the river and everybody in it killed. Thank God, the engine blew out both her cylinder heads before she got here, and of course stopped. The train dispatcher, you see, knew that the convicts were running wild down the road, and he ordered the switch opened to prevent the much greater damage they might do further on.” When Dick mentally laid out his story in the train returning to the city, this incident seemed to him the most dramatic thing in it. “It’s worth a year’s salary to talk to such a man,” he said to himself. “I thought I knew something about obeying orders, but I understand it better now. And I don’t believe that any of the other fellows have got hold of this part of the story. Oh, if only they haven’t!” Jack Randall was in the office when Dick returned and sat down to write. “Do you mind my looking over your copy?” he asked, after a few pages were written. “I know everybody up there, so I’m interested.” “I should be delighted,” Dick answered; “and I hope you’ll tell me if you see anything wrong.” It was a long evening’s work writing the article, for the pages made a thick pile--enough to fill two and a half columns of the paper. Dick had done a tremendous day’s work, but the excitement prevented his feeling yet the exhaustion that was sure to follow. “Do you find any bad breaks?” he asked, after Randall had read the last page. “Bad breaks!” Randall repeated; “why, Sumner, it’s a classic. I thought you had some stuff in you, but I didn’t believe you could write like this. That ‘open the north switch and throw 89 into the river’ is worthy of Dickens; there’s a touch of the Sidney Carton in it. You’ll not be doing any more half-stick meetings and five-line fires after this, Sumner.”