His patriotic fervor ran so high that by the time he reached the
crossing, the passenger train was already in sight. Jires, helpless
and terrified at his post, was distractedly shouting directions from
his little sentinel box.
"Flathers! There's a washout down the road! We've got to hold up the
passenger train. Get out the red flag! Quick man! Be ready to signal
the engineer. Three times cross ways! The red flag, you fool! the RED
FLAG! Oh, my God!"
For Phineas Flathers, to whom all flags now looked red, white and
blue, was standing at the crossing, joyously waving a white flag,
while the engineer with his hand on the throttle, released the brakes,
and sent his train thundering down the grade to destruction.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Myrtella, having finished her visit in a grand finale of
pyrotechnics, in which she displayed Phineas to his wife in a number
of blazing lifelike portraits, took her departure. It was not the
first time she had faced the alternative of paying the rent, or seeing
her only relative turned into the street, nor was it the first time
that, after giving innumerable pieces of her mind to Maria, she had
followed them up with the rent.
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