As he stood
at the window of the ticket office, the ticket seller, who was also the
telegraph operator, tried to engage him in conversation. When he had given
the information asked, he followed Hugh out of the building and into the
darkness of a country railroad station at night, and the two men stopped
and stood together beside an empty baggage truck. The ticket agent spoke of
the loneliness of life in the town and said he wished he could go back to
his own place and be again with his own people. "It may not be any better
in my own town, but I know everybody there," he said. He was curious
concerning Hugh as were all the people of the Indiana town, and hoped to
get him into talk in order that he might find out why he walked alone at
night, why he sometimes worked all evening over books and figures in his
room at the country hotel, and why he had so little to say to his fellows.
Hoping to fathom Hugh's silence he abused the town in which they both
lived. "Well," he began, "I guess I understand how you feel. You want to
get out of this place." He explained his own predicament in life. "I got
married," he said. "Already I have three children. Out here a man can make
more money railroading than he can in my state, and living is pretty cheap.
Just to-day I had an offer of a job in a good town near my own place in
Ohio, but I can't take it. The job only pays forty a month.
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