john was not back at the office “within the week.” he forgot the office and simeon tetlow and tomlinson. he had eyes only for a white face looking up to him from the pillow and his ear listened only for low moans that broke the darkness. the spirit of courage had driven the thin body a step beyond the line where the soul has its way, and the body had turned and struck back.
tomlinson, waiting in his daughter’s home, wondered a little at the silence, but waited, on the whole, content. since his talk with john a hope had sprung up in him that, somehow, the boy would do for him what he could never do for himself. he had started out for bayport more because he wanted to look simeon tetlow in the face than because he hoped for justice at his hands. but since he had talked with the hoy, his purpose had changed imperceptibly and his shrewd scotch sense of justice asserted itself. he would speak the president of the road fair. the man should have his chance. he should not be condemned unheard. so tomlinson waited, his sullen mood passing gently into tolerance.
but his daughter, a buxom woman, many years eddie’s senior, grew impatient at the delay. she prodded tomlinson a little for his inaction.
“what is it like, that johnny bennett—a slip of a boy—can do for ye with simeon tetlow?” she had demanded scornfully when the week had gone by and no word had come.
“he has a way ye can trust, jennie—the boy has,” the old man had replied.
“best trust yourself,” said the woman.
“go and stan’ up before sim tetlow. tell him to his face what ye want. and if he won’t give it to ye—then curse him!”
so the old man wavered forth, half driven to a task to which he felt himself unequal. but his reliance was on the boy. he would find him and ask what to do.
“john bennett?” the assistant bookkeeper, hurrying back from luncheon a little late, paused in the doorway, looking at the tall, red-eyed scotchman who put the anxious question.
“john bennett?” he wrinkled his brow a little, as if trying to place so unimportant a person—“i think he works up above—top floor. take the elevator.” he passed on, chuckling a little at the invasion of the sacred territory. “‘nobody comes up here,’” he said mincingly, as he drew the ledger toward him and plunged into work, harrying to make ap lost time.
tomlinson looked a little fearfully at the iron cage, plying up and down. he cast an eye about for the more friendly stairway. he was not afraid of any engine, however mighty and plunging, that held to solid earth, keeping its track with open sky; but these prisoned forces and office slaves, clacking back and forth in their narrow walls, and elevators knocking at a man’s stomach, were less to his mind. he climbed laboriously up the long stairs, flight after flight, his spent breath gasping at each turn. at the top floor he gazed around him, his mouth a little open.
“a queer place for the lad,” he said to himself, his faith in john oozing a little as he walked across and knocked at the door of the room.
there was a moment’s silence; then the scraping legs of a chair, and silence.
tomlinson had raised his hand ready to rap again. the door receded before his knuckles....
it was the president of the road, himself, simeon tetlow—whom all men hated and feared—standing there grim and terrible.
tomlinson’s nerveless hand rose to his hat.
“i’m wanting to ask you something, sir.”
the man surveyed him with a scowl. “who told you to come up here?” he demanded.
“it were johnny bennett, sir.”
the scowling face changed subtly. it seemed to grow more human beneath its mask.
tomlinson took heart. “it’s only a word i want with you, sir.”
“come in.”
tomlinson shut the door circumspectly and stood turning his hat in his fingers.
“well?”
“it ’s the place, sir—i ’m tomlinson,” he said.“oh—you—are—tomlinson—”
the old man shrank a little, as if each word had struck him lightly in the face. then he raised his head. “i ’ve served the road forty year,” he said, repeating his lesson, “and i’ve never done harm. i’ve worked early and i’ve worked late for ye, and never a word of complaint.”
the president of the road stirred sharply. “the bridgewater wreck—”
the old man raised his hand. “it’s that i wanted to speak about, mr. tetlow.” there was a simple dignity in the words. “i’d been on duty seventeen hour—and ten hour before that—with not a wink of sleep. they run us hard on the hours, sir.”
“the other men stand it—the young men.” the words had a kind of cutting emphasis.
the old man raised his red eyes. “they’ve not gi’ed their strength to the road, sir, as i have—” he threw out a hand. “the road’s had all o’ me.”
simeon eyed him keenly, the bent look and worn shoulders. his glance traveled up and down the thin frame slowly.... not an ounce of work left in him.
“we ’ve no place for incompetents,” he said, turning away.
tomlinson made a step forward, as if he would touch him with his hands. then he stood quiet. “there might be a boy’s place, sir—”
the man wheeled sharply, driven without and within—“i tell you we’ve nothing for you. you ’ve done your work. you ’ve had your pay. you ’re used up.” it was the biting truth and the old man shrank before it.
“i can’t spend any more time on you,” said the president of the road. he turned decisively to his desk.
for a moment tomlinson stood with bent head. then he raised his red-rimmed eyes, fixing them on the man before him. his right hand lifted itself significantly. “may the god in heaven curse ye, simeon tetlow, as ye have cursed me this day. may he shrivel ye, body and soul, in hell—” the words were shrill. “curse ye—curse ye!”
he drew a step nearer, his eyes still on the other’s face.... gradually a change seemed to come over him. the bent figure straightened itself. it towered above the president of the road, filling the little room. the chieftain of some mighty highland clan might have stood thus, defying his enemy. his lifted right hand grew tense and flung itself, and a torrent of broad scotch poured forth. words of fire, heard in tomlinson’s boyhood and forgotten long since, were on his tongue. the elemental passions were afire within him. like the slow-burning peat of his native bogs, his soul, nourishing its spark through the years, had blazed forth—a scorching torrent. the words rolled on, a mighty flood, enveloping the man before him. scathing tongues of flame darted at him and drew back, and leaped high—to fall in fiery, stinging showers on his head.
at the first words of the imprecation the president of the road had lifted his head with a little smile—almost of scorn—on his lips, as one might watch some domestic animal reverting to its ancestral rage. but as the broad scotch rolled on—stem, implacable and sinister—the smile faded a little and the man seemed to shrivel where he stood, as if some fiery blast touched him. when he raised his head again, the look in his eyes was of cold steel.
he waited a minute after the voice had ceased, then he lifted his hand quietly. “you ’ve had your say, tomlinson. now i ’ll say mine—you leave this office and you leave the road. you ’ll never touch brake or throttle or switch on it again. you ’re not fit—do you understand!”
he moved his hand toward the door and tomlinson went out, a tottering old man once more.
for a long minute the president of the road stood staring at the closed door. the hand that had pointed to it had not trembled; but now it began subtly, as if of its own will, to move. slowly the vibration communicated itself to the whole frame till the man threw himself into a chair, broken from head to foot. he leaned toward his desk, gasping a little. “my god!” he said under his breath, “my god!” he lifted his hand and wiped the moisture from his forehead with the dazed look of one who has come through some mighty upheaval unharmed.
