With Edge Tools Part 14

Waterman made room for his friends, and depositing their luggage on the floor they sat down opposite him. As the train moved slowly out of the station, Howard-Jones sauntered into the car and took the seat remaining, next to Waterman.

"Well, how is Chicago?" Waterman asked Duncan.

"Don't talk to him about Chicago," interrupted Van Vort. "Don't you know he has just come from London?"

"Of course I do, but I know all about London. I want to hear about Mr.

Breezy and Miss Lakeside, and all the other queer people one reads about in _Life_ and _Puck_. Don't you remember the last time we saw Duncan? He was going gunning for elevators, and I want to hear about them. How are the pork-packers, Duncan?"

"I didn't meet any."

"What, and you went to Chicago!"

"Exactly," Duncan replied. "They say there that one has to go away to meet them. The right sort don't seem to know them."

"What were the people like, anyway?" asked Howard-Jones.

"The women are dears, some of the men are queer, most of them are pa.s.sable, and a few are the whitest chaps I ever came across. I was treated like a prince. I lived at the City Club, and they could not do enough for me there."

"Did you get anything fit to eat?" asked Howard-Jones dubiously.

"You must imagine the people out there eat jerked venison and dine in their shirt-sleeves," replied Duncan. "They don't live in wigwams, and buffalo don't run wild in the streets."

"Don't get huffy, Duncan; I was only judging by what I had heard. You remember what Waterman said about Chicago."

"Yes, and I repeat again," replied that worthy, "it is the beastliest hole it has ever been my luck to get stranded in."

"Then you display your ignorance," said Duncan.

"I admit I have heard something about Chicago being the centre of the universe," retorted Waterman, "but I thought that opinion was confined to the breezy inhabitants of the windy city."

"Well, in my opinion," said Duncan, "Chicago isn't a half bad place.

'Tisn't New York, of course, but you can't expect that. They've got most of the things there that we have, and some that we haven't. There's one thing about the people, too, that I like; they keep awake when the rest of the world is dozing, and that is bound to tell in the end."

"That's right, Duncan," echoed Van Vort.

"Sit down on sectional ignorance and prejudice. New Yorkers are getting to be as provincial as Parisians, and it is time they learned that the sun doesn't rise and set on Manhattan Island."

"You are all wrong, Rennsler," answered Howard-Jones. "Duncan is drawing a big salary for booming Chicago real estate; you'd do the same thing if you got paid for it."

"No back talk, Hyphenated-Jones," said Duncan facetiously. "Just crawl behind that French novel and don't let me hear from you again."

"I will if you will shut up about Chicago; you make me weary."

"Anything to keep you quiet," answered Duncan.

The four friends gradually settled themselves behind afternoon papers or novels, and remained silent. The train rattled on through small suburban towns and now and then drew up before a dainty, vine-covered station, with low walls and high gabled roofs, where the brakeman put his head inside the door and called off some name in unintelligible accents.

People got out hurriedly, their arms filled with packages of all descriptions, the door slammed, the train started, the newsboy pa.s.sed through with the papers, pop-corn, puzzles, and everything else that n.o.body wanted, the conductor poked dozing pa.s.sengers for their tickets, the atmosphere grew blue with smoke, and the minutes pa.s.sed with the exasperating slowness of time spent on a suburban train.

"I say, Duncan," said Waterman, yawning behind his paper, "how would you like to take this trip twice a day?"

"I'd rather die a natural death and be done with it, if I did not have a private opinion that Hades is a suburban town, where the Devil tortures his victims by making them bolt breakfast in two minutes and run to catch a train, only to be brought back again after dark just in time to sleep and take the next train in the morning."

"That's the joy of living in the country," replied Waterman. "However, I can tell you how to pa.s.s the time to-day."

"How?" asked Duncan.

"Go back and talk to the Simpson girls. I saw them getting into the last car, and I think they are going out to Osgood's, too."

"None of that for me."

"Better send Rennsler to look after them," suggested Waterman; "I think I can recommend him as a safe and suitable chaperon."

"What's that?" said Van Vort, glancing over his paper at the sound of his name.

"We think you had better go back and talk to the charming Miss Simpson,"

said Duncan.

"Which? The one with freckles, or the one who squints."

"Both," replied Waterman.

"From such a fate, good Lord deliver us," answered Van Vort contritely.

"Your prayer is answered," said Duncan, "for here we are at the getting-off place. I never remember the name of it, so I always book through to Morristown, and look out for that red barn over there."

The engine slackened its pace while the four friends hurriedly gathered their things together and walked toward the car door. When the train stopped they pa.s.sed out and alighted on the deserted platform of a small country station. The village consisted of three or four houses and a barn, and the station was merely a covered shed and platform, without the usual complement of station-master, baggageman, etc. It was of so little importance that trains did not stop there except by signal or request, and the Osgoods made use of it merely because it was nearer their place than was Morristown. On this occasion, however, there was no one there to meet the travelers, and it seemed to them that they had been forgotten. The train had pulled out immediately, and they were left to their own resources in a small, New Jersey hamlet, four miles from their destination. There was no one in sight except the Simpson girls, who had alighted at the other end of the platform, and the four men felt it their duty to wander toward them and proffer such civilities as the occasion demanded.

"We had no idea you were on the train," said Duncan, as they reached the place where the girls were standing. "I suppose you are bound for the Osgoods?"

"Yes," replied the elder Miss Simpson, "but we seem to be stranded here.

What shall we do?"

"Wait until we are rescued," said Van Vort. "I don't believe Osgood is cruel enough to leave us here long."

"No, by Jove! for there are his leaders," interposed Waterman, as a team of chestnuts and a smart char-a-bancs, driven by Harry Osgood himself, with his wife on the box seat, swept rapidly around the corner of Duncan's red barn. There were two girls sitting behind the Osgoods, whom they recognized as Miss Warner and Miss Reine Merrit,--two of their set,--and the men had just time to take off their hats before the trap was driven up beside the platform.

"Been waiting long?" called Osgood, as he pulled up his team. "My near leader picked up a stone, and I have the stage timed so close that any delay makes me late."

"It will teach you to take more time, Harry," said his wife, as, without accepting the proffered aid of a servant, she jumped to the ground. "How do you do, everybody," she continued, when she lighted on the platform.

"Why, Duncan Grahame! Where in heaven's name did you come from?"

"From London, to see you, but I don't seem to be expected," replied Duncan.

"I forgot to tell Helen I had asked you, but it's all right," called Harry Osgood from his high seat.

"Of course it is," replied his wife, "but I wish you wouldn't shock me so again. I thought I had seen a ghost."

"Never mind ghosts, but get the people up," said her husband.