The Denver Limited had backed into the depot shed at Chicago, and was
loading when the Philosopher came through the gate. He was going down to
Zero Junction where he was serving the company in the capacity of
station agent. Patsy Daly was taking the numbers of the cars, and at his
elbow walked a poorly-dressed man, and the Philosopher knew in a moment
that the man wanted to ride.
The Philosopher, with a cigar in his mouth, strolled up and down
catching snatches of the man's talk. In a little while he had gathered
that the anxious stranger's wife lay dying in Cheyenne, and that he had
been tramping up and down the land for six months looking for work. If
Patsy could give him a lift to Omaha he could work his way over the
U. P. where he knew some of the trainmen, having worked on the Kansas
Pacific out of Denver in the early days of the road. His story was so
lifelike and pathetic that Patsy was beginning to look troubled. If he
could help a fellow-creature up the long, hard hill of life--three or
four hundred miles in a single night--without straining the capacity of
the engine, he felt that he ought to do it.
Patsy had gone to the head end (the stranger standing respectfully
apart) to ask the engineer to slow down at the Junction, and let the
agent off. He hoped the man might go away and try a freight train, but
as the conductor turned back the unfortunate traveller joined him.
Now the eyes of Patsy fell upon the face of the Philosopher, and a
brilliant thought flashed through his mind. He marvelled, afterwards,
that he had not thought of it sooner.
"Here, old man," said Patsy, "take this fellow's testimony, try his
case, and let me have your opinion in nine minutes--it's just ten
minutes to leaving time."
Now it was the Philosopher to whom the prospective widower rehearsed
his tale of woe.
There was not much time, so the station agent at Zero began by offering
the man a cigar, which was accepted. In the midst of his sorrowful story
the man paused to observe a handsome woman, who was at that moment
lifting her dainty, silken skirts to step into the sleeper. The
Philosopher had his eyes fastened to the face of the man, and he thought
he saw the man's mustache quiver as though it had been agitated by the
passing of a smothered smile.
"Well," the man was saying, "we had been married only a year when I lost
my place and started out to look for work."
By this time he had taken a small pocket knife from his somewhat ragged
vest, clipped the end off the cigar neatly, put the cut end between his
teeth, and the knife back into his pocket. Without pausing in his
narrative (he knew he had but nine minutes) he held out a hand for a
match. The Philosopher pretended not to notice the movement, which was
graceful and perfectly natural. As they turned, up near the engine, the
sorrowful man went into his vest again and brought up a small, silver
match-box which he held carefully in his closed fist, but which snapped
sharply, as the knife had done when he closed it.
"Excuse me," said the Philosopher, reaching for the match-box, "I've
lost my fire."
The melancholy man made a move towards his vest, paused, changed his
mind, and passed over his lighted cigar.
"Go on," said the examining judge, when he had got his cigar going
again.
Now at each turn the Philosopher quickened his pace, and the man, eager
to finish his sad story, walked beside him with a graceful, springy
walk. The man's story was so like his own--so like the tale he had told
to Patsy when the strikers had chased him into a box car--that his heart
must have melted, had it not been for the fact that he was becoming
more and more convinced, as the story grew upon him, that the man was
lying. Now and then he said to himself in spite of himself, "This must
be true," for there were tears in the man's voice, and yet there were
things about him that must be explained before he could ride.
"Patsy," said the Philosopher, pausing before the conductor, "if you'll
stand half the strain, I'll go buy a ticket for this man to Cheyenne."
"N' no," said the man, visibly affected by this unexpected generosity,
"n' no, I can't let you do that. I should be glad of a ride that would
cost you nothing and the company nothing; but I can't--I can't take your
money," and he turned away, touching the cuff of his coat, first to his
right and then to his left eye.
Patsy sighed, and the two men walked again. Five minutes more and the
big engine would begin to crawl from the great shed, and the voyager
began wondering whether he would be on board. The engineer was going
round the engine for the last time. The fireman had spread his fire and
was leaning leisurely on the arm-rest. The Pullman conductors, with
clean cuffs and collars, were putting away their people. The black-faced
porters were taking the measures of men as they entered the car. Here
comes a gray-haired clergyman, carrying a heavy hand-satchel, and by his
side an athletic looking commercial tourist.
One of the black porters glides forward, takes the light hand-grip,
containing the travelling man's tooth-brush, nightshirt, and razor, and
runs up the step with it.
Now a train arrives from the West, and the people who are going away
look into the faces of the people who are coming home, who look neither
to the right nor left, but straight ahead at the open gates, and in
three minutes the empty cars are being backed away, to be washed and
dusted, and made ready for another voyage. How sad and interesting
would be the story of the life of a day coach. Beaten, bumped, battered,
and banged about in the yards, trampled and spat upon by vulgar
voyagers, who get on and off at flag stations, and finally, in a
head-end collision, crushed between the heavy vestibuled sleepers and
the mighty engine.
But sadder still is the story of a man who has been buffeted about and
walked upon by the arrogant of this earth, and to such a story the
Philosopher was now listening. The man was talking so rapidly that he
almost balled up at times, and had to go back and begin again. At times
it seemed to him that the Philosopher, to whom he was talking, was
giving little or no attention to his tale; but he was. He was making up
his mind.
It is amazing the amount of work that can be done in ten minutes, when
all the world is working. Tons of trunks had passed in and out, the
long platform had been peopled and depopulated twice since the two men
began their walk, and now another train gave up its human freight to the
already crowded city.
Now, as they went up and down, the Philosopher, at each turn, went a
little nearer to the engine. Only three minutes remained to him in which
to render his decision, which was to help the unhappy man a
half-thousand miles on the way to his dying wife, or leave him sadder
still because of the failure--to pine and ponder upon man's inhumanity
to man.
Patsy, glancing now and then at the big clock on the station wall,
searched the sad face of his friend and tried to read there the answer
to the man's prayer.
It would be that the man should ride, he had no doubt, for this story
was so like the story of this same man, the Philosopher, with which he
had come into Patsy's life, and Patsy had resolved never to turn his
back upon a man who was down on his luck.
The Philosopher's face was indecipherable. Finally when they had come to
the turning point in the shadow of the mail car, he stopped, leaned
against the corner of the tank and said: "I can't make you out, and you
haven't made out your case."
"I don't follow you," said the man.
"No? Well suppose I say, for answer, that I'll let you go--sneak away up
through the yards and lose yourself; provided you promise not to do it
again."
"You talk in riddles. What is it that I am not to do again? You say you
have hit the road yourself, and you ought to have sympathy for a fellow
out o' luck."
"I have, and that's why I'm going to let you go. Your story is a sad
one, and it has softened my heart. It's the story of my own life."
"Then how can you refuse me this favor, that will cost you nothing?"
"Hadn't you better go?"
"No, I want you to answer me."
"Well, to be frank with you, you are not a tramp. You've got money, and
you had red wine with your supper, or your dinner, as you would say."
The man laughed, a soundless laugh, and tried to look sad.
"You've got a gold signet ring in your right trousers pocket."
The man worked his fingers and when the Philosopher thought he must have
the ring in his hand, he caught hold of the man's wrist, jerked the hand
from his pocket, and the ring rolled upon the platform. When the man cut
off the end of his cigar the Philosopher had seen a white line around
one of the fingers of the man's sea-browned hand. Real tramps, thought
the Philosopher, don't cut off the ends of their cigars. They bite them
off, and save the bite. They don't throw a half-smoked cigar away, but
put it, burning if necessary, in their pocket.
"What do you mean?" demanded the man, indignantly.
"Pick up your ring."
"I have a mind to smash you."
"Do, and you can ride."
"You've got your nerve."
"You haven't. Why did you stare at that lady's feet, when she was
climbing into the car?"
"That's not your business."
"It's all my business now."
"I'll report you for this."
The man started to walk past the big station master, but a strong hand
was clapped to the man's breast pocket and when it came away it held a
small pocket memorandum.
"See what's in that, Patsy," said the Philosopher, passing the book to
the conductor, who had gone forward for the decision.
The man made a move, as if he would snatch the book, but the big hand at
his throat twisted the flannel shirt, and choked him. Patsy, holding the
book in the glare of his white light, read the record of a man who had
been much away from home. He had, according to the book, ridden with
many conductors, whose names were familiar to Patsy, and had, upon
divers occasions, noticed that sometimes some people rode without paying
fare. In another place Patsy learned that trainmen and other employees
drank beer, or other intoxicating beverages. A case in point was a
couple of brakemen on local who, after unloading a half-dozen reapers
and a threshing machine at Mendota, had gone into a saloon with the
shipper and killed their thirst.
While Patsy was gleaning this interesting information the man writhed
and twisted, fought and fumed, but it was in vain, for the hand of the
Philosopher was upon his throat.
"Let me go," gasped the man, "an' we'll call it square, an' I won't
report you."
"Oh! how good of you."
"Let me go, I say, you big brute."
"I wanted to let you go a while ago, and you wouldn't have it."
The man pulled back like a horse that won't stand hitched and the button
flew from his cheap flannel shirt.
"I'm a goat," said the Philosopher, stroking the man's chest with his
big right hand, "if he hasn't got on silk underwear."
"Come now, you fellahs," said the man changing his tune, "let me go and
you'll always have a friend at Court."
"Be quiet," said the Philosopher, "I'm going to let you go, but tell me,
why did you want to do little Patsy, that everybody likes?"
"Because Mr. Paul was so cock sure I couldn't. He bet me a case of
champagne that I couldn't ride on the Omaha Limited without paying
fare."
"And now you lose the champagne."
"It looks that way."
"Poor tramp!"
Patsy had walked to the rear of the train, shouted "All aboard," and the
cars were now slipping past the two men.
"Have you still a mind to smash me?"
"I may be a wolf but this is not my night to howl."
"Every dog has his day, eh?"
"Curse you."
"Good night," said the Philosopher, reaching for a passing car.
"Go to--" said the tramp, and the train faded away out over the
switches.