He found it rather pleasant to be sympathized with and pitied.

"What if a fire broke out while I was gone ?" "Well, what if?
I could do what you would do, couldn't I?
What do you do when a fire breaks out ?" That gave Jack a fair excuse for leaving his place by the shelf, and coming around to her side of the table, and for taking the pointer from her and standing close beside her while he explained the chart.
Needless to say, he made use of the excuse immediately.
"First off," he instructed, "you don't want to be a boob and go reporting train smoke, like I did the first day I was here.

Picked up a black smoke down below, here--right down there! I got the number on the chart and phoned it in, and the lookout on Claremont didn't yeep about it.

So they called up and asked him to come alive and report.

By that time the smoke had moved from where I saw it, and the whole train was in sight from his station, coming round the hill into Marston.