"Well, generally it takes you four or five days. You got to learn
all the cross streets, and the principal places on all the lines."
"Yes?"
"It didn't take me more'n two. Boston boy."
"Yes," said Lemuel, with a fine discouragement. "I presume the
conductors are mostly from Boston."
"They're from everywhere. And some of 'em are pretty streaked, I can
tell you; and then the rest of us has got to suffer; throws
suspicion on all of us. One fellow gets to stealin' fares, and then
everybody's got to wear a bell-punch. I never hear mine go without
thinkin' it says, 'Stop thief!' Makes me sick, I can tell you."
After a while Lemuel asked, "How do you get such a position?"
The conductor seemed to be thinking about some thing else. "It's a
pretty queer kind of a world, anyway, the way everybody's mixed up
with everybody else. What's the reason, if a man wants to steal, he
can't steal and suffer for it himself, without throwin' the shame
and the blame on a lot more people that never thought o' stealin'? I
don't notice much when a fellow sets out to do right that folks
think everybody else is on the square. No, sir, they don't seem to
consider that kind of complaint so catching. Now, you take another
thing: A woman goes round with the scarlet fever in her clothes, and
a whole carful of people take it home to their children; but let a
nice young girl get in, fresh as an apple, and a perfect daisy for
wholesomeness every way, and she don't give it to a single soul on
board.
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