A Romance in Transit. Lynde Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ got upon his feet. "One moment, if you please," he protested. "There is nothing wrong – nothing different. Mr. Jordan and I were merely discussing the question of an extra limit on his own ticket; that was all."

      "Oh."

      "Ah."

      "Where do we get dinner?"

      "What time do we reach Denver?"

      "Is there a dining-car on this train?"

      Brockway answered the inquiries in sequence, and when the norm of quiet was restored, a soft-spoken little gentleman in a grass-cloth duster and a velvet skull-cap drew him away to the smoking-compartment.

      "Let's go and smoke," he said; and Brockway went willingly, inasmuch as the little gentleman with the womanish face and the ready cigar-case was the only person in the party who seemed to be capable of travelling without a guardian.

      "Worry the life out of you, don't they, my boy," said the comforter, when his cigar was alight.

      "Oh, no; I'm well used to it."

      "I presume you are, in a way. Still, some of the complaints are so ridiculous. I suppose you've heard the latest?"

      "Nothing later than Mr. Jordan's demand for sixty days in which to complete a week's journey."

      "Oh, it isn't that; that's an individual grievance. The other involves the entire party. Of course, you are aware that the Tadmor is no longer the rear car in the train?"

      "Oh, Lord! are they going to fight about that?"

      "Unquestionably. Didn't you promise some of them that this particular chariot should be at the tail-end of the trans-continental procession?"

      "No. It was merely an answer to a question. I said that extra cars were usually put on behind. Are they going to demand it as a right?"

      "Yes; I believe the deputation is waiting for you now."

      "Heavens – what a lot of cranks!" said Brockway, despairingly. "The thing can't be done, but I may as well go and fight it out."

      The deputation was in section six, and one of the committee rose and gave him a seat.

      "There is a little matter we should like to have adjusted," began the courteous one; but Brockway interrupted.

      "Mr. Somers was just telling me about it. I hope you are not going to insist – "

      There were two elderly ladies on the committee, and they protested as one person.

      "Now, Mr. Brockway! You know we made it a positive condition – so we could go out on the platform and see the scenery."

      "But, my dear madam, let me explain – "

      "There is nothing to explain; it was an explicit promise, and we insist on its fulfilment."

      "Just one word," Brockway pleaded. "The car behind us is our General Manager's private car, lent to President Vennor, of the Colorado and Utah. If we should put it ahead of this, Mr. Vennor's party would be continually disturbed by the passengers and train-men going back and forth. Don't you see – "

      The fourth member of the deputation put in his word at this.

      "How long has it been since the railway companies began to put the convenience of their guests before the rights of their patrons, Mr. Brockway? Answer me that, if you please."

      "I should like to know!" declared one of the ladies. "We have paid for our accommodations."

      The courteous one summed up the matter in set phrase.

      "It's no use, Mr. Brockway, as you see. If you don't carry out your part of the agreement, I'm afraid we shall have to telegraph to your superiors."

      For a moment Brockway was tempted to answer four fools according to their folly. Then he bethought him that he had but now been seeking a pretext which would open the door of the private car. Here was a makeshift; a poor one, to be sure, but better than none. Wherefore, instead of quarrelling with the deputation, he rose with placatory phrases in his mouth.

      "Very well; I'll see what can be done. But you must give me a little time; the scenery – " pointing to the monotonous landscape circling slowly with the onward sweep of the train – "is not exactly of the rear-platform variety yet."

      After which he retreated to the rear vestibule of the Tadmor and stood looking out through the glass panel in the door at the hamper-laden front platform of the Naught-fifty, trying to muster courage to take the chilling plunge. For he knew that the year agone episode was not altogether pleasing to the father of Miss Gertrude Vennor.

      III

      THE PRIVATE CAR

      "Yes, sah; mighty sorry, sah; but we cayn't cook you-all's dinner, no-how, sah. Wateh-pipe's done bu'sted in de range."

      President Vennor turned and regarded the big-bodied cook of the Naught-fifty with the eye-sweep of appraisal which Mrs. Burton had found so annoying.

      "No dinner, you say? That's bad. Why did you burst the pipe?"

      "I – I didn't bu'sted it, sah; hit des bu'sted hitse'f – 'deed it did, sah!"

      "Well, can't you serve us a cold lunch?"

      "Might do dat – yes, sah; ef dat'll do."

      "What is that, papa; no luncheon to-day?" asked a young woman, coming down the compartment to stand beside the President's chair.

      There was a family resemblance, but in the daughter the magic of femineity had softened the severer characteristics until they became winsome and good to look upon. The cool gray eyes of the father were Gertrude's inheritance, also; but in the eyes of the daughter the calculating stare became the steady gaze of clean-hearted guilelessness; and in her even-tinted complexion there was only a suggestion of the sallow olive of the father's clean-shaven face. For face and figure, Gertrude owed much to birth and breeding, and it was small wonder that Frederick Brockway had lost his heart to her in time-honored and romantic fashion.

      The President answered his daughter's query without taking his eyes from the big-bodied cook.

      "No; there is something the matter with the range. Ask the others if they would prefer a cold luncheon in the car to the table d'hôte at the dinner station."

      Gertrude went to the other end of the compartment and stated the case to Mrs. Dunham, the chaperon of the party; to Priscilla and Hannah Beaswicke, two young women of the Annex; to Chester Fleetwell, A.B., Harvard, by the skin of his teeth, but the ablest oarsman of his class by a very safe majority; and to Mr. Harold Quatremain, the President's secretary.

      The dinner station carried it unanimously, and Gertrude announced the vote.

      "We're all agreed upon the table d'hôte," she said; and the Falstaffian negro shook himself free and backed into the vestibule. "What is its name? and when do we arrive?"

      "I'll have to inquire," Mr. Vennor replied. "I'll go forward and have the conductor wire ahead for a separate table."

      But Gertrude said: "Please don't; let's go with the crowd for once. I'm so tired of being always specialized."

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