I don’t know.  Mebbe they wouldn’t of thought it preposterous that a mere brakeman was hurled that far, but Ed was a capitalist now.  Anyway, the president had him into his car for lunch with the party, and they might possibly of got to talking about other things of less importance, but Ben wouldn’t have any thing else.  He made ’em insist that Ed should tell his version of the whole thing; how he felt when the cars started, and how the scenery was blurred, and how his whole past life flashed before him, and the last thing he remembered before he hit the sawdust.  And Ben set there looking so proud of Ed, like a mother having her little tot recite something.  And when Ed had finally lit, Ben made him tell about his slow recovery.  And after Ed got himself well again Ben would go back to the start and ask for more details, such as whether he hadn’t wanted to jump off on the way down, or whether he had been conscious while going through the air for nearly four hundred feet.

Ed got little food; but much he cared!  He’d come into his own at last.  And suddenly he was surprised by finding a warm glow in his heart for Ben, especially after Ben had said for about the third time:  “I was certainly a green hand in those days; so green that I didn’t begin to realize what a whale of an occurrence this was.”  Ed was getting a new light on Ben.

After lunch Ed’s own car got in from Colfax and he had the party over there for cigars and more talk about himself, which was skillfully led by Ben.  Then the president invited Ed to hitch his car on and come along with them for a little trip, and talk over mining and investments, and so on, and what the outlook was in the Southwest.  So Ed went with ’em and continued to hear talk of his accident.  Ben would bring it up and harp back to it, and bring it forward and sandwich it in whenever the conversation had an open moment.  It was either the wild thoughts Ed must of had sliding down the canon, or the preposterous constitution he had been endowed with, or the greenness of himself for not recognizing it as the prize accident of the ages.  And I don’t wonder Ben went on that way for the next two days.  He knew what a tenacious idiot Ed was, and that he had come miles out of his way to try something he had often tried before.  The most he could hope for was to stave off the collision till his officials got away.

And it looked, the second night, like he wasn’t going to be able to do even this much.  He’d been detecting cold looks from Ed all day, in spite of his putting on another record about the accident every ten minutes or so.  They was laid out at some little station, and just before dinner Ed give Ben the office that he wanted a word private with him.  Ben thinks to himself it’s coming now in spite of all his efforts to smooth it over.  But he leaves the car with Ed and they walk a piece up the track, Ben hoping they can make the lee of a freight car before Ed starts his crime of violence.  He makes up his mind quick.  If Ed jumps him there in the open he will certainly do his best to win the contest.  But if he waits till they get this freight car between them and the public, then he will let Ed win the fight and get the scandal out of his life forever.