"John D. Fitzgerald - The Great Brain At the AcademyUC - 4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fitzgerald John D)

he embarrassed as the conductor and all the passengers
except Sweyn began laughing at him. Papa had often said
that when a fellow starts out trying to make a fool of
somebody else he usually ends up making a foot of him-
self. And that is exactly what happened to Tom. But
there was one thing Papa and Mamma had drilled into us
boys and that was always to face up to our problems.

"I deserve to be laughed at," Tom said to the conduc-
tor. "I tried to make a fool out of you and ended up being
the fool."

"Don't take it so hard, Tom," the conductor said
sympathetically. "Some of our greatest inventors were
laughed at. You just keep on using that great brain of
yours and someday you will invent something that will
improve trains."

"In that case," he said, "I've got to iearn all about
trains by the time we get to Salt Lake City. Can I come
with you?"

"Come along," the conductor said, smiling.

When they got to the caboose the conductor intro-
duced himself as Harold Walters and the brakeman as
Paul Jackson.

"Why. do you ride in the caboose instead of in the
coach?" Tom asked.

"This is what we call a feeder line," Mr. Walters said.
"On feeder lines we don't have a train that is strictly for
passengers like we do on the main line. This train, for ex-
ample, has a mail-and-baggage car, a freight car, and some-
times a car for livestock in addition to a smoking car and
a coach car. And because the train is what you could call

11

part of a freight train we have a caboose like they do on all
freight trains. On the main-line passenger trains the con-
ductor and brakeman have a seat reserved for them on
one of the coaches."

Tom remained with Mr. Walters for almost three
hours, going with the conductor to the coach and smoking
cars to collect tickets at each stop. Then he returned to his
seat.