I like to ride on the cars pretty well, and so does Mark. There are
always such a heap of things to see out of the window, and such a lot of
different kinds of people right on the cars. It was about four hours’
ride to the city, but it didn’t seem half that long, and I was sorry
when we got there. It was pretty dark when we walked out of the depot
into the street.
“Now what?” says I.
“B-bed,” says he.
“Where?” says I.
“Hotel,” says he.
“There’s one,” I says, pointing right across the street, so we took our
satchels and went over. There was a fellow behind a counter, and when we
came up he sort of grinned and says good evening.
“How much does it cost to sleep here?” says Mark.
“Two dollars and a half is our cheapest room.”
“For both of us?”
“I guess I can make it three and a half for two.”
“I g-guess you can’t,” says Mark. “The way I look at it, no two boys can
do three d-d-dollars and a half worth of sleepin’ in one night. Hain’t
there no cheaper places?”
“Lots of ’em, young man. There’s a tramps’ lodging-house down the street
where you can stay for ten cents.”
“Um!... Well, I calc’late what we want is somethin’ betwixt and between.
Somethin’ where we kin stay for about a dollar apiece.”
That seemed like an awful lot to spend just for sleeping. Why, in the
morning our two dollars would be gone and we wouldn’t have anything to
show for it. It seems like when you spend money you ought to _git_
something. I nudged Mark and says to him that it was cheaper to stay
awake, and we could use our dollars to-morrow to buy something we could
touch. But he says we got to sleep to be fresh for business.
“I’ll tell you,” says the man behind the counter. “I’ve got a little
room without a bath, and if you can sleep two in a bed, you can have it
for two-fifty.”
“All r-right,” says Mark. “Kin we have breakfast here?”
“If you’ve got the money to pay for it.”
“Um!... But there’s places where we can git g-g-good grub cheaper ’n you
sell it, hain’t there?”
“Why, yes! There’s a good serve-self lunch up the street where you can
get a lot to eat for fifty cents. Say, what are you kids up to? Running
away from home?”
“Not that you can n-notice,” says Mark. “We’re here on b-business. We
come to see the p-president of that railroad across the street.”
“Oh,” says the man, and he laughed right out. “You come to see him, did
you? Was he expecting you?”
“No.”
“Um!... Well, from all accounts, he’s a nice man to see—I guess not.
They say he eats a couple of men for breakfast every morning. He keeps a
baseball-bat on his desk, and hits everybody that comes to see him a
lick over the head. I see him every little while, and, believe me, I’m
glad I don’t have to mix in with him any. I expect he’s the grouchiest
man in town.”
“Sorry to hear it,” says Mark, “but I guess we kin m-make out to git
along with him s-somehow.”
“Want to go to your room?”
“Yes.”
Well, a boy with a uniform picked up our satchels and showed us into the
elevator and then went into our room first and lighted the lights. Then
he sort of stood around and eyed us like there was something he wanted
to say, but he didn’t say a word. We looked at him right back, because
we weren’t going to let on that we cared a rap what any kid with a
uniform on did or said. Pretty soon Mark says:
“Well, was there anythin’ you was n-needin’?”
“Huh!” says the kid.
“What you hangin’ around for, anyhow?”
“I guess you hain’t traveled much,” says the boy.
“It hain’t p-p-part of your job to tell us, is it?”
“Did you ever hear of a tip?” says he.
“Tip?” says Mark.
“Most generally gentlemen gives us bell-boys a tip when we carry their
bags to their room,” says he.
“Tip of what?” says I. “I hain’t got no tip unless it’s the tip of my
nose.”
“A tip is money,” says the boy.
“We hired this here room for two dollars and a half, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” says he.
“We didn’t make no b-bargain with you about carryin’ satchels, nor with
the man at the counter, did we?”
“No,” says he. “Nobody does. But everybody gives tips. You _got_ to give
tips.”
“Hain’t you p-paid wages for doin’ what you do?”
“Yes, but they hain’t enough.”
“Then,” says Mark, “you ought to make the hotel raise your pay and not
go t-t-tryin’ to gouge it out of folks that stays here.”
“Everybody does it,” says the boy. “You can’t never git nothin’ done in
a hotel if you don’t tip.”
“Do you git a tip every time you carry a satchel?”
“Yes.”
“Now you look here. I got an idee you’re tryin’ to git somethin’ out of
us ’cause we’re kids and come from Wicksville. I’m g-g-goin’ to f-find
out. If it’s the custom, why, I’ll give you a tip ’cause I want to do
what’s right. But if you’re t-tryin’ to do us out of money, why, you
won’t git it. I’m goin’ to ask the man behind the counter.”
And that’s what he done. He went right down and asked, and the man
laughed like all-git-out and told Mark all about tips, and Mark told
_him_ what he thought about them, and then he give the boy a dime and we
went to bed.
We went to sleep in a minute and it seemed like it wasn’t more than a
minute before we was awake again. Mark woke up first and gouged me in
the ribs till I woke up. Then we dressed.
“It’s f-five o’clock,” says Mark. “We want to git our breakfast and
hustle. You kin bet a man with a big job on a r-r-railroad is down to
work early. He’d have to be. Maybe we kin s-see the man we want about
six o’clock and git an early train home.”
So we went to a serve-self place where you didn’t eat off of a table,
but off of the arm of your chair, and we et quite a good deal and it was
good. Then we came back to the railroad station and it was just six
o’clock. There wasn’t many folks around, but we found a man in a uniform
and Mark asked him who was boss of all the freight-cars. The man told
him he guessed the general freight agent was, and Mark says, “Where’s
his office?”
The man told him and Mark went there with me. It was shut up tight. We
waited and kept on waiting, and in about an hour a man came along with
overalls and a cap that said something on the front of it.
“Hey, mister!” says Mark. “We’re waitin’ to see the general freight
agent. What’s the m-m-matter with him? Is he sick or somethin’?”
“Him!” says the man. “No, he hain’t sick. What makes you think he is?”
“’Cause he hain’t down to work.”
“Did you expect to see him at seven o’clock in the mornin’?”
“To be sure.”
“Well, you come back again about nine and maybe he’ll be here by that
time. He usually gits around about nine.”
“Nine,” says Mark. “Why, that’s ’most n-noon.”
The man let out a laugh.
“How long does he work in the afternoon?” says Mark.
“Oh, he goes to lunch about one o’clock, and gets back around half past
two, and then he sticks to the job maybe till four.”
“Honest?” says Mark.
“Honest,” says the man.
“Well, I’ll be dinged!” says Mark. “And they pay him a r-r-reg’lar day’s
wages for that? Him workin’ maybe five hours a day?”
“If you got his salary, kid, you could buy a railroad for yourself.”
The man went along, and we kept on waiting, but Mark couldn’t get it out
of his head how a man with an important job could hang onto it and do
such a little mite of work. He said he guessed maybe he’d get him a job
like that some day where he just had to work five hours. He said he’d do
all that work in a stretch and then go out for dinner, and in the
afternoon he would have him another job just like it, and work ten hours
a day and make twice as much. I thought that was a pretty good idea
myself.
It was all of nine o’clock when that man came, though there was folks
working under him that came a little earlier. We kept asking if he was
there until a man told us we was a doggone nuisance and that the boss
wouldn’t see us, anyhow. And that’s just what happened. When he got
there we asked if we could see him, and the man that was near the gate
in the office asked what our business was, and we told him, and he said
we couldn’t bother the boss with it. Mark said he guessed maybe the boss
better be told we was there, anyhow, and after quite a lot of fuss the
man went and told him, and then came back to say the boss was busy and
couldn’t see us. He told us there wasn’t any use hanging around, because
we wouldn’t ever get to see him.
That looked pretty bad, and Mark was as mad as could be. He said we had
a right to see that man, and that it wasn’t decent or good business for
him to refuse to see us. But that didn’t mend matters. We could git as
mad as we wanted to, but that wouldn’t get us a minute’s talk with the
freight agent.
“I’ll b-bet there’s somebody kin m-make him see us,” says Mark. “The
p-p-president of this railroad’s a bigger man than the freight agent,
and we’ll git him to fix it for us.”
I says to myself that if we couldn’t get to see one it was mighty funny
if we could get to see the biggest man of all; but Mark was bound to
try, so we found out where the president’s office was and went up there.
It was half past nine and he wasn’t to work yet.
“When’ll he be here?” says Mark.
“Maybe ten o’clock,” says a man that was working outside the president’s
door.
“Ten,” says Mark, “um!... And how long does he stay?”
“Oh, he’ll be around maybe till one, and then he gets lunch and you
can’t tell how long he’ll be out. Then he goes home mostly about three
or half past.”
“Goodness!” says Mark to me. “I hain’t goin’ to be any f-f-freight man.
I’m goin’ to be a p-p-president. Looks like he only works three hours,
and maybe he gets p-paid three or four thousand dollars for it. Why, any
feller could have three jobs like that, workin’ one right on the end of
the other, and doin’ nine hours’ work a day! I could git rich doin’
that.”
So we waited some more, and after a while in come a slender man with
white hair and a cane, all dressed up like he was going to a party
instead of coming to work. Everybody acted like they was afraid of him
when he came in, and pertended to be mighty busy. He didn’t speak to
anybody, but just marched through into his own room and scowled like
anything. He looked like he was a regular man-eater.
“Was that him?” says Mark.
“Yes.”
“Well, will you tell him that I want to t-t-talk to him?”
“Who are you and what do you want?”
Mark told him.
“I dassen’t bother him with that,” says the man. “He looks savage
to-day. He might discharge me right off.”
“But I’ve got to see him. It’s important. It’s awful important.”
“I’ll try it,” says the man, “but there isn’t a chance.”
So he went to the door and rapped and put in his head. We heard a man
roar.
“Get out of here!” he bellowed. “Shut that door! Get out! I won’t see
anybody this morning! Understand? Get out and stay out!”
The man came back and says, “There, you see.”
We did see, all right, and I was discouraged. Maybe Mark was, too, but
he didn’t show it. He just looked madder than ever.
“I’m goin’ to s-s-see that man,” says he, and we went out of that room
into the long corridor. There we stopped and stood looking out of the
window.
In about two minutes Mark says, “Dast you t-t-try it, Plunk?”
“Yes,” says I. “What?”
“Look at that fire-escape. See how it goes along right past that room we
were in. The p-president’s office is next and it goes p-p-past his
window. We kin git in that way.”
“He’d throw you off into the street,” says I.
“He couldn’t l-lift me,” says he, and grinned.
“Well,” says I, “I’m willin’ to go second if you’ll go first.”
“Come on,” says he.
In two jerks of a lamb’s tail we pushed up the window and got onto the
fire-escape. Then we skittered along it, ducking past windows as quick
as we could, until we were in front of a window that we judged was in
the president’s room. We looked in. Sure enough, there he was leaning
back in his chair and scowling and smoking like a chimney. His window
was up a little from the bottom, but not enough for us to get in. We
stood and watched him a minute. Then Mark says, “Here goes.”
He rapped loud on the window and then pushed it up.
“Good m-m-mornin’!” says he. “Kin we come in?”
The president looked at us like he was seeing spooks or something, and
rubbed his eyes and jumped up, and Mark says:
“Don’t be scairt. We hain’t f-f-figgerin’ on hurtin’ you.”
With that both of us got into the room and walked over toward him. He
didn’t say a word, but just stared and scowled.
“We come to see you on b-b-business,” says Mark, “but they wouldn’t let
us in. We had to see you, so here we are.”
“I see you’re here,” says he, sharp and savage. “Now let me see you get
out again. Quick!”
I was ready to turn tail and skedaddle, but not Mark. He walked right
over to that president just like he was anybody common and says:
“I’m s-sorry, sir, if we b-bother you. But I’ve _got_ to t-talk to you a
minute. We can’t get to see anybody, and if we can’t get f-fixed up we
are goin’ to bust.”
The man scowled worse than ever and took a step toward Mark, but Mark
never give back an inch.
“I’ll have you thrown out,” says the man.
“If you say you won’t t-t-talk to us,” says Mark, “and if you can feel
down in your heart that you’re doin’ right, why, we’ll go without
b-bein’ thrown. But we was sure that a man couldn’t get to be
p-president of a whole railroad unless he was fair and square. That’s
why we come right to you. We sort of had confidence, sir, that you was
goin’ to see that what was right was done.... But if you don’t feel that
way about it, why, we’ll be g-g-goin’ along.”
He turned then and went over toward the door. The man didn’t say a word
till we were almost there, then he says, “Hold on there!”
We stopped.
“What do you know about what is fair and what isn’t, or what is good
business and what isn’t?”
“I may not know much about b-b-business,” says Mark, “but anybody knows
what’s f-fair. Here I am—a customer of your railroad just like a man
that buys a steak from a b-butcher is a customer of the butcher. If
folks wouldn’t use your railroad to send stuff on you would have to go
out of b-business. It looks to me like I was doing something you ought
to appreciate when I ship a car of freight, and that when I come to see
you about railroad b-business, that is goin’ to put m-money into your
p-pocket, the least you could do and be fair would be to l-listen. I’m
always mighty anxious to keep my customers feelin’ f-f-friendly toward
me.”
“H’m!” says the president.
Mark went on along toward the door and never looked back.
“Just a minute,” says the president. “What’s your hurry?”
“We thought you wanted us to g-go.”
“Come back here,” says he. “Come back here. What do you mean, anyhow,
coming into my office and talking to me like this? How dare you talk to
me like this?”
I tell you I was pretty scared, but I looked at Mark and his eyes were
twinkling.
“I know I was right about you, sir,” says he.
“Right? What do you mean?”
“That you was f-fair and square, sir.”
“H’m!” says the president. “Sit down and be quick. I haven’t any time to
waste. Tell me what you want and tell it briefly. No beating around the
bush.” Anybody would have thought he was going to bite our heads off.
So Mark told him the whole thing from beginning to end, and he told it
quick. I hadn’t any idea so much could be told to anybody in such a
short time; but then I might have known Mark could do it if he wanted
to. When he got right down to business he could be mighty brief, I’ll
tell you.
“And that’s what you’ve dared to break into my office to bother me with,
is it? For a cent I’d have you thrown out. I don’t know but I ought to
do worse.”
Mark he never said a word, but just looked at the president respectful
and confident.
The president turned around to his desk and wrote, and then he fairly
threw a paper at Mark. “There,” says he. “Now git out.”
Mark looked at the paper and I looked over his shoulder. It said:
To all officials and employees of the P. G. R. R.: See to it
that the bearer, Mark Tidd, is provided with freight-cars at
any point to be transported to any other point in the United
States within twelve hours of a request. This order is
superior to all other rules or embargoes that may be at this
time in force.
And his name was signed.
“Thank you, sir,” says Mark, “and good-by.”
He never looked up, and I thought he wasn’t even going to nod his head
when we went out, but he called us back again. “D’you know why I gave
you that order?” says he.
“I think so, sir,” says Mark.
“Well, you don’t,” says the president, “but I’ll tell you. It’s because
you’ve got the most tremendous crust in the world. It’s because you
weren’t afraid, and it was because you had the backbone to force your
way in here and compel me to talk to you. That’s why. Now git.”
We got.