Cinder Path Tales

PADDY'S PROBATION 83 declined to see the joke, rolled up his sleeves, and offered to whip the man who did it, if he was man enough to stand on his feet. This challenge bringing no response but laughter, he singled out the biggest fellow in the gang, and fetched him a blow on the chin that landed him on his back. It was a warning which they took only in part, but they confined their persecutions to an irri­ tating nagging to which he paid little at­ tention. Indeed, I think Paddy would have been contented to have continued as he was to the age of seventy, forthe pay seemed fabu­ lous to him, and he was living in a shower of luxuries, with meat every day, and a palatial room, eight by ten, in which to spend his nights and Sundays. But unfortunately the labor of track-mak­ ing would not last forever; one by one the men were discharged, until by the first of May there were only a half-dozen left, Paddy among them, and they wereexpecting to be paid off in a couple ofweeks, or sooner. Now there was somethingabout the atmos­ phere of the collegegrounds, andparticularly the cinder-path, that suited Paddy's constitu­ tion wonderfully, and when it reached his ears that one man would probably be retained for regular workuntil winter, and perhaps a