The spectator., 1921-05-20

0luer register. II WaS BULLOCK, uenry Bullock.
 suppose it was up to ne to go to bed. It was late enough. in all con- science, and nobody knew better than l did the early-rising, early office opening habits of Mir. Graham Nor cross, G. M. Just the same, after ] had marked that Mir. CollingwoOd's room-key was still in its box, l went over to a corner of the lobby and sat down, determined to keep my eyes open, if such a thing were humanly possible, until our rounder should show up.
 Finally my patience, or whatever you care to call it, was rewarded. Just after the baggage porter had tin- ished sing-songing his call for the night express westbound, my man came in on the run.
 When he rushed over to the counter and began to talk fast to the night clerk, l wasn't very far behind him. He was telling the clerk to get his grips down from the room, adjectvely quick. While the boy was gone for the grips, my man made a straight shoot for the bar, and when 1 next got a sight of him-from behind one of the big onyx-plated pillars of the bar-rOom colonnade-he was pouring neat liquor down his throat as if 1t were water and he on fire inside.
 That was about all there was to 1t. By the time Collingwood got back to the clerks counter, the boy was down with the bags. Colllngwood looked up sort of nervously at the big clock, and paid his bill. And while the clerk was getting his change, he grabbed the pen out of the counter inkstand, and made out as if he was shading in picture, or Something on the open register
 A half-minute later he was gone. When the taxi purred away 1 turned to the open register to see what our maniac had been drawing in it. What he had done was completely to ob- literate his signature. He had scratched 1t over until the past master of all the handwriting experts that ever lived couldn't have told what the name was.
 IL was while we were eating break fast the next morning in the Bullard cafe-the boss and l-that we got our first news of the Petrolte wreck The story was red-headlined in the Morn ing Herad-the Hatch-owned paper and besides being played up good and strong in the news columns, there was an editorial to back the front-page l scream.
 At two o'clock in the morning a
 fast westbound freight had left the track in Petrolite Canyon, and before they could get the flagman out. de- layed eastbound passenger had col lided with the ruins. There were nc lives lost, but number of people, | including the engineman, the postal ! clerks and the baggage on the pas senger, were injured
 The editorial, commenting on the wire stuff, was sharply critical of the Short Line management. It hinted broadly that there had been no such thing as discipline on the road since Mr. Shaffer had left it; that the rank and file was running things pretty
 much as it pleased; and with this there was a dig at general managers
 who let old and time-tried depart ment heads go to make room for their
 rich and incompetent college friends
 which was meant to be a slap at Mir.
 Van Britt, our own and only mil | lionaire.
 UnhappiIy, this fault-finding had a
 good bit to build on, in one way. As | l have said we were having operat-
 ing troubles to beat the band. With
 the rank and file apparently doing it's | level best to help out in the new | "public-be- pleased" program, 1t seemed
 as if we couldn't worry through
 single week without smashing some thing.
 Lattery, even the newspapers that
 were friendly to the Norcross manage ment were beginning to comment on the epidemic of disasters, and nothing
 in the world but the boss policy of taking all the editors into his con- | fidence when they wanted to in-
 vestigate kept the rising storm of criticism somewhere within bounds Mir. Norcross had read the paper | before he handed it over to me. and | afterward he hurried his breakfast a little. When he reached the office Mir.
 Van Britt was waiting for the chief We've got 1t in the neck once more." he gritted, flashing up his own copy of the Herald. Did you read that editorial?"
 Never mind the newspaper talk. | How bad is the trouble this time?" Pretty bad. The freight is prac- | tically a total loss; good half of 1t is in the river. Kirgan says he can pick the freight engine up and re- build it; but the passenger machine is a wreck"
 "How did 1t happen?"