The brakeman came and apologised.  After he was gone the Major said: 

’Now you see how simple and easy that was.  The ordinary citizen would have accomplished nothing—­the brother-in-law of a directory can accomplish anything he wants to.’

‘But are you really the brother-in-law of a director?’

’Always.  Always when the public interests require it.  I have a brother-in-law on all the boards—­everywhere.  It saves me a world of trouble.’

‘It is a good wide relationship.’

‘Yes.  I have over three hundred of them.’

‘Is the relationship never doubted by a conductor?’

‘I have never met with a case.  It is the honest truth—­I never have.’

’Why didn’t you let him go ahead and discharge the brakeman, in spite of your favourite policy.  You know he deserved it.’

The Major answered with something which really had a sort of distant resemblance to impatience: 

’If you would stop and think a moment you wouldn’t ask such a question as that.  Is a brakeman a dog, that nothing but dogs’ methods will do for him?  He is a man and has a man’s fight for life.  And he always has a sister, or a mother, or wife and children to support.  Always—­there are no exceptions.  When you take his living away from him you take theirs away too—­and what have they done to you?  Nothing.  And where is the profit in discharging an uncourteous brakeman and hiring another just like him?  It’s unwisdom.  Don’t you see that the rational thing to do is to reform the brakeman and keep him?  Of course it is.’

Then he quoted with admiration the conduct of a certain division superintendent of the Consolidated road, in a case where a switchman of two years’ experience was negligent once and threw a train off the track and killed several people.  Citizens came in a passion to urge the man’s dismissal, but the superintendent said: 

’No, you are wrong.  He has learned his lesson, he will throw no more trains off the track.  He is twice as valuable as he was before.  I shall keep him.’

We had only one more adventure on the train.  Between Hartford and Springfield the train-boy came shouting with an armful of literature, and dropped a sample into a slumbering gentleman’s lap, and the man woke up with a start.  He was very angry, and he and a couple of friends discussed the outrage with much heat.  They sent for the parlour-car conductor and described the matter, and were determined to have the boy expelled from his situation.  The three complainants were wealthy Holyoke merchants, and it was evident that the conductor stood in some awe of them.  He tried to pacify them, and explained that the boy was not under his authority, but under that of one of the news companies; but he accomplished nothing.

Then the Major volunteered some testimony for the defence.  He said: 

’I saw it all.  You gentlemen have not meant to exaggerate the circumstances, but still that is what you have done.  The boy has done nothing more than all train-boys do.  If you want to get his ways softened down and his manners reformed, I am with you and ready to help, but it isn’t fair to get him discharged without giving him a chance.’