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He was saying cordially, "Ah, Croffut, you are late " Then his dim eyes saw me; he pulled himself up like a train when the air-brakes are clapped on. "They told me at the office that you were at dinner," said I in the tone of one who has unintentionally blundered. "As I was looking for dinner, I rather hoped you'd ask me to join you. But I see that "
I hurried into the office to buy a ticket, and the train came in as I came out, the locomotive-bell clanging faintly above the gasp of the air-brakes and the blowing of steam. "Good morning," I said. "You are away early." We climbed into the smoker and took a seat not likely to incommode the card-players.
The trucks grated harshly, the whirring groan of the air-brakes ran under him like a great sigh, and suddenly he was looking down into the face of a pop-eyed man who was clanging a bell, with all the strength of his right arm, under his window, and who, with this labour, was emitting a husky din of "Supper supper 'ot an' ready at the Royal" in his vain effort to drown the competition of a still more raucous voice that was bellowing: "'Ot steaks an' liver'n onions at the Queen Alexandry!"
It was six o'clock of a fine morning, and the train was toiling up a precipitous grade to the spine of the mountain, where the down-slope would begin and air-brakes rule. Pobloff looked about him. He scratched his long nose, a characteristic gesture, and began wondering when coffee would be ready. He pressed the bell. The guard entered, a miserable bandit who bravely wore his peaked hat with green plumes
The hiss and whistle of the air-brakes, the harsh, sustained note of the shrieking wheel-flanges shearing the inner edges of the railheads on the curves, and the stuttering roar of the 266's safety-valve were continuous; a deafening medley of sounds multiplied a hundred-fold by the demoniac laughter of the echoes.
McCloud at last gave the awaited signal, and, with keen-eyed, anxious men watching every revolution of the cautious driving-wheels, the engine, hissing and pausing as the air-brakes went off and on, pushed the light caboose slowly out on the rough spur to its extreme end and stopped with the pilot facing the main track at right angles; but before it had reached its halting-place spike-mauls were ringing at the fish-plates where a moment before it had left the line on the curve.
If Winton should attempt to build around the private car, the fireman was to wait till the critical moment: then he was to lessen the pressure on the automatic air-brakes and let the car drop back down the grade just far enough to block the new crossing. So it came about that this mechanical lieutenant waited, laughing in his sleeve, until he saw the Italians coming with the crossing-frogs.
One could not be drinking strong coffee all the time, nor could battle shocks come any longer every few weeks. The sudden collapse of the Confederacy, and the ending of the war, was like clapping the air-brakes instantaneously upon the Empire State Express while at full speed. While the air pressure might stop the wheels, there was danger of throwing the cars off their trucks.
"How are the air-brakes working?" asked Sinclair. "First-rate." "Then, if you slowed down now, you could stop the train in a third of her length, couldn't you?" "Easy, if you don't mind being shaken up a bit." "That is good. How is the country about the xth mile-post?" "Dead level, and smooth." "Good again.
At this moment the whistle sounded shrilly, and we felt the grind of the air-brakes. "The Pegram signal again," cried Kombs, with something almost like enthusiasm. "This is indeed luck. We will get out here, Whatson, and test the matter." As the train stopped, we got out on the right-hand side of the line.