"There wasn't any call to trample on ye
like that. But manners was left out when Moguls was made. Keep
up your fire, kid, an' burn your own smoke. 'Guess we'll all be
wanted in a minute."
Men were talking rather excitedly in the roundhouse. One man, in
a dingy jersey, said that he hadn't any locomotives to waste on the
yard. Another man, with a piece of crumpled paper in his hand, said
that the yard-master said that he was to say that if the other man
said anything, he (the other man) was to shut his head. Then the
other man waved his arms, and wanted to know if he was expected to
keep locomotives in his hip-pocket. Then a man in a black Prince
Albert, without a collar, came up dripping, for it was a hot August
night, and said that what he said went; and between the three of
them the locomotives began to go, too - first the Compound; then
the Consolidation; then .007.
Now, deep down in his fire-box, .007 had cherished a hope that as
soon as his trial was done, he would be led forth with songs and
shoutings, and attached to a green-and-chocolate vestibuled flyer,
under charge of a bold and noble engineer, who would pat him on his
back, and weep over him, and call him his Arab steed.
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