As the engineer dropped a little oil here and there for another dash, the Englishman came up to the engine.  He could not bring himself to ask the driver for another ride, and he didn’t need to.

“You don’t get de jobs?” asked Martin.

“No.”

“Vell, dat’s all right; you run his railroad some day.”

“I don’t like the agent here,” said the driver; “but if you were up at the other end of the yard, over on the left-hand side, he couldn’t see you, and I couldn’t see you for the steam from that broken cylinder-cock.”

Now they say an Englishman is slow to catch on, but this one was not; and as the engine rattled over the last switch, he climbed into the cab in a cloud of steam.  Martin made him welcome again, pointing to a seat on the waste-box.  The dead-head took off his coat, folded it carefully, laid it on the box, and reached for the shovel.  “Not yet,” said Martin, “dare is holes already in de fire; I must get dose yello smoke from de shtack off.”

The dead-head leaned from the window, watching the stack burn clear, then Martin gave him the shovel.  Half-way up a long, hard hill the pointer on the steam-gauge began to go back.  The driver glanced over at Martin, and Martin took the shovel.  The dead-head climbed up on the tank and shovelled the coal down into the pit, that was now nearly empty.  In a little while they pulled into the town of M.C., Iowa, at the crossing of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul.  Here the Englishman had to change cars.  His destination was on the cross-road, still one hundred and eighteen miles away.  The engine-driver took the joint agent to one side, the agent wrote on a small piece of paper, folded it carefully, and gave it to the Englishman.  “This may help you,” said he; “be quick—­they’re just pulling out—­run!”

Panting, the Englishman threw himself into a way-car that was already making ten miles an hour.  The train official unfolded the paper, read it, looked the Englishman over, and said, “All right.”

It was nearly night when the train arrived at W., and the dead-head followed the train crew into an unpainted pine hotel, where all hands fell eagerly to work.  A man stood behind a little high desk at the door taking money; but when the Englishman offered to pay he said, “Yours is paid fer.”

“Not mine; nobody knows me here.”

“Then, ’f the devil don’t know you better than I do you’re lost, young man,” said the landlord.  “But some one p’inted to you and said, ’I pay fer him.’  It ain’t a thing to make a noise about.  It don’t make no difference to me whether it’s Tom or Jerry that pays, so long as everybody represents.”

“Well, this is a funny country,” mused the Englishman, as he strolled over to the shop.  Now when he heard the voice of the foreman, with its musical burr, which stamped the man as a Briton from the Highlands, his heart grew glad.  The Scotchman listened to the stranger’s story without any sign of emotion or even interest; and when he learned that the man had “never railroaded,” but had been all his life in the British Government service, he said he could do nothing for him, and walked away.