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Updated: April 30, 2025
He recognized one of them as the man who had taken his place in the yards, but he scarcely blamed him now. Perhaps the fellow had been hungry, and the striker knew too well what that meant. Presently, the switchman went back to the stove and began to button his thin coat up about his throat. "I'm dead broke myself," said the well-dressed stranger, "but I'm going to help you if you'll let me."
It is not so dangerous as being a burglar or a switchman, for he can find an excuse for jostling one in the street-cars or in a crowd and thus reaching into a pocket. The burglar is not so apt to be a professional; his is a bolder and more hazardous trade; if he is caught he is taken from his occupation for a longer time.
Then he would miss something, I think; he would miss his deep joyous daily acts of faith, his daily habits of believing in things in steam, and in air, and in himself, and in the switchman, and in God. I see him in his cab window, he swings out his blue sleeve at me! I like the way he stakes everything on what he believes.
He then followed his natural bent, became a switchman and later a brakeman, was a charter member of the Brotherhood, and, when its outlook was least encouraging, became its Grand Master. At once under his leadership the organization became aggressive. The conditions under which trainmen worked were far from satisfactory.
For twenty years Madam and Mr. Bangs, as partners in the firm of Bartlett & Bangs, had tried to run in opposite directions on the same track, with the result that head-on collisions were of frequent occurrence. Since Randolph Bartlett's retirement from the firm, Quin had succeeded him as official switchman, and had proven himself an adept.
The switchman had carelessly left the switch open after this train went by, and when we came along afterward, our train, instead of running in by the platform, went crashing into the freight train. If we had been going fast, great damage might have been done.
Notwithstanding all these contributions to the family revenue, it became a sore struggle for the widow of Americanus Jenkins to feed and clothe such a numerous brood, so she sought further means of maintenance. "I've took a boarder!" she announced solemnly to Amarilly on her return from the theatre. "He's a switchman and I'm agoin' to fix up the attic fer him.
At the terminal station of a great railroad, in the midst of a network of shining rails, stands the switchman's tower. By means of steel levers the man in his tower can throw his different switches and open one track to a train and close another; by means of various signals the switchman can tell if any given line is clear or if his levers do their work properly.
"No, you weren't alone; and if the switchman and the switchman's wife weren't dead and out of it all; and if the other man that didn't matter any more than you wasn't alive and hadn't a family that does matter, I wouldn't be asking you peaceably for two thousand dollars as my fee for getting you off two cases that might have sent you to prison for twenty years, or, maybe, hung you to the nearest tree."
Caesar continued on to the Piazza Venezia, contemplated the palace of the Austrian Embassy, yellow, battlemented; and stopped under a big white umbrella, stuck up to protect the switchman of the tramway. "Here, at least, the weight of tradition or history is not noticeable. I don't believe this canvas is a piece of Brutus's tunic, or of Pompey's campaign tent.
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