III
THE APOTHEOSIS OF SAMMY DURGAN
THE only point the Hill Division, from Carleton, the super, to the last car tink, would admit it was at all hazy on as far as Sammy Durgan was concerned, was why in the everlasting name of everything the man stuck to railroading. When the Hill Division got up against that point it was floored and took the count.
Sammy Durgan wore the belt. He held a record never equalled before or since. Tommy Regan, the master mechanic, who had a warped gift for metaphor, said the man was as migratory on jobs as a flock of crows in a poor year for corn, only a blamed sight harder to get rid of.
As far back as anybody could remember they remembered Sammy Durgan. Somewhere on the division you were bound to bump up against him—but rarely twice in the same place. There wasn't any one in authority, even so mild an authority as a section boss, who hadn't fired Sammy Durgan so often that it had grown on them like a habit. Not that it made much difference, however; for, ejected from the roundhouse, Sammy Durgan's name would be found decorating the pay roll next month in the capacity of baggage master, possibly, at some obscure spot up the line; and here, for example, a slight mix-up of checks in the baggage of a tourist family, that divided the family against itself and its baggage as far as the
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