There! I make you a present of that for your
next temperance meeting. Now let's go out and buck Ronnie up. Remember,
he'll feel jolly flat for a bit, with no temperature. Temperature is a
thing you miss, when it has become a habit."
CHAPTER XVII
"HE NEVER KNEW!"
Ronnie saw Dick off by the mid-day train.
After the train had begun to move, Dick leaned from the window, and said
suddenly: "Ronnie! talk to your wife about her Leipzig letter, and--_the
kid_, you know."
Ronnie kept pace with the train long enough to say: "I wish you wouldn't
call it the 'kid,' Dick; it is the 'Infant.' And Helen declines to talk
of it."
Then he dropped behind, and Dick flung himself into a corner of his
compartment, with a face of comic despair. "Merciful heavens," he said,
"slay that Infant!"
Meanwhile Ronnie was saying to a porter: "When is the next train for
town?"
"One fifty-five, sir."
"Then I have no chance now of catching the three o'clock from town, for
Hollymead?"
"Not from town, sir. But there is a way, by changing twice, which gets
you across country, and you pick up the three o'clock all right at
Huntingford, four ten."
"Are you sure, my man? I was told there was no way across country."
"The one fifty-five is the only train in the day by which you can do it,
sir. I happen to know, because I have a sister lives at Hollymead, so
I've done it m'self. If trains aren't late, you hit off the three
o'clock at Huntingford.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151