Chicago, April 30. 
GARRITY,
Montgomery City: 

Effective arrival successor J.P.  Aldrich must dispense your valuable services.  Kindly forward resignation by wire confirming this telegram.

W.W.  WALKER,
Vice-President & General
Manager.

“And who is this Walker person?” Jewel asked, with a vindictive gasp.  “’Tis me that never heard of him.  Why should he sign hisself vice prisident and giniral manager when the whole world knows Mr. Barstow, bless his soul, is the——­”

“Will ye listen?” Martin bellowed with sorrowful asperity.  “Somethin’s happened.  And now: 

GARRITY,
Montgomery City.

Alabaster abound celebrity conglomerate commensurate constituency
effective arrival successor.  Meet me Planters Hotel St. Louis this
P.M. 
                                         LEMUEL C. BARSTOW.”

And while Jewel gasped Martin went on: 

“’Tis code it is, from Barstow.  It says Walker’s taken his place—­and I’m out.”

Mouth drawn at the corners, hand trembling slightly, Jewel reached for the message and stared blankly at the railroad code.  Then silently she turned and thumped up the stairs.  In a moment she was down again; the screaming foulard had given place to a house dress; the red toque had been substituted by a shawl.  But the lips were drawn no longer—­a smile was on them, and a soft hand touched Martin’s white cheek as she reached the door.

“‘Tis me that’s goin’ to the cash-carry, Marty darlin’,” came quietly.  “I never liked that high-toned market annyhow.  About—­about that other, Marty, me bye, ’tis all right, it is, it is.  We can always start over again.”

Over again!  It had opened the doors of memory for Martin Garrity as, at the window, he stared after her with eyes that saw in the portly, middle-aged figure a picture of other days, when the world had centred about a fluttering honour flag, which flew above a tiny section house at a bit of a place called Glen Echo, when the rotund form of Jewel Garrity was slender and graceful, when Martin’s freckled face was thinner and more engaging, and when——­

Visions of the old days floated before him, days on the section with his crew of “snipes” back in the Honour Flag times.  Memories returned to him, of blazing hours in the summer, when even the grease-lizards panted and died, when the heat rays curled in maddening serpent-like spirals before his glazed eyes.

And why?  Why had he been willing to sacrifice, to work for wages pitiful indeed, compared to the emoluments of other lines of endeavour?  Why had she, his Jewel, accepted the loneliness, the impoverishment of those younger days with light-heartedness?  He never had thought of it before.  Now, deposed, dethroned, defeated at the very pinnacle of his life, the answer came, with a force that brought a lump to his throat and a tear to his eyes.  Why?  Because they had loved this great, human, glistening thing of shining steel and thundering noise, loved it because the Blue Ribbon division had included the Blue Ribbon section, their section, which they had built together.