all the dignity of George Washington insisting on his title of
President, that his name was Wing. After that he merely met the
nickname with a blank, solemn, "_No sabe_" stare, as uncompromising and
as impenetrable as a stone wall. It was impossible to look out of
doors at any time or in any part of Tobin without seeing Wing. He was
always going somewhere and was always in a hurry, but he was always
ready to stop and chat for a moment with any one, large or small, who
addressed him without giving offence.

Everybody knew him, residents and summer visitors alike. The men all
teased him and the women all petted him. Nobody knew or cared in which
one of the dozen houses of the Chinese quarter Wing's father and mother
lived, nor whether his father had a laundry, a store, or a garden.
They were nobodies; but Wing was a public character.

Wing's chief daily function was to assist at the arrival of the
east-bound passenger train. The west-bound, having only one engine,
was of less consequence. But at the passing of the other he never
missed a day, Sundays, holidays, or rainy season. He inspected the
engines, counted the wheels, considered the possibility of getting a
ride on the pilot of the second engine, dodged around through the
crowd, ran against people, had his toes trodden on, saw everybody who
went away, stared at all who came, capered up and down the car-steps,
put pins on the rail to be flattened by the wheels, stood with one foot
inside the track until the train started, and, after it was all over,
rode away triumphantly, hanging to the steps of the hotel omnibus.

After a while he began to thrill with the desire to know how it would
feel to run backward on the track in front of the moving engine. He
had had a brief glimpse of the possibility of that bliss as he crossed