"He's got a job in th' trainmaster's office," Jim explained. "He wants to learn the business." Mickey nodded, and knocking out his pipe against his boot-heel, deliberately filled it again, lighted it, and turned back to his work. Finally the tricycle was loaded and he pushed it out on the main line, ready for his trip. Jim followed him anxiously. He watched Mickey take his seat on the queer-looking machine, spit on his hands and grasp the lever; then he turned away disappointed. That line was not going to be possible, after all. "Wait a minute," called Mickey. "What th' blazes are ye in such a hurry about? Do ye see that wire up there--th' outside wire on th' lowest cross-arm?" "Yes," nodded Jim, following the direction of the pointed finger. "Well, that's a dead one. We don't use it no more, an' I'm a-goin' t' take it down afore long. Ye kin use it, if ye want to, till then--mebbe it'll be a month 'r two afore I git around to it." "Oh, thank you, Mr. Mickey," cried Jim, his face beaming. "That will be fine. We're a thousand times obliged--" But the lineman cut him short with a curt nod, bent to the lever, and rattled away over the switches, out of the yards. Jim hurried on to his place in the long-shop, getting there just as the whistle blew, and went about his accustomed work, but he kept an eye out for Allan, who, he knew, would be coming through before long in search of the master-mechanic. Allan, you may be sure, did not neglect the chance to say good-morning to his new friend, and listened with sparkling eyes while Jim poured out the story of his success with Mickey. "And now," he concluded, "all we'll have to do is to run a wire into our house from the pole just in front of it, and then run another across the yards here to your house. We can do it in a couple of evenings." "And we'll have it for a month, anyway," added Allan. "A month! We'll have it as long as we want it. That was just Mickey's way. He didn't want to seem to be too tender-hearted. He'll never touch the wire as long as we're using it. I'll get some old wire to make the connections with, and fix up the batteries." "All right," agreed Allan, and went on his way. The work of stringing the wires was begun that very evening; the batteries were overhauled and filled with dilute sulphuric acid, and the keys and sounders were tested and found to be in good shape. Three evenings later, one of the instruments was clicking on the table in Allan's room, and Jim was bending over the other one in his room a mile away. Only, alas, the clicks were wild and irregular and without meaning. But that did not last long. The book on telegraphy helped them; Allan himself, in the dispatchers' office, had ample opportunity to observe how the system worked, and each of the boys copied out the Morse alphabet and set himself to learn it, practising on his key at every spare moment.