He realized that they had been saying it in monotonous rhythm ever since he started—that they would go on saying it through eternity.
Suddenly the train jarred to a standstill. Figures with lanterns emerged through a cloud of steam and stood under his window.
"Guess we got a hot-box," said a sleepy passenger across the aisle. "That means I'll miss my connection."
Quin got up and went out on the platform. He was filled with rage at the lazy deliberation with which the men set about their task. He longed to wrench the tools out of their hands and do the job himself.
"How much will this put us behind?" he demanded of the conductor.
"Oh, not more than twenty minutes. We'll make some of it up before morning."
Once more under way, Quin dropped into a troubled sleep. He dreamed that he was pursuing a Hun over miles of barbed-wire entanglements; but when he overtook him and forced him to the ground, the face under the steel helmet was the smiling, supercilious face of Harold Phipps. He woke up with a start and stretched his cold limbs. The black square of the window had turned to gray; arrows of rain shot diagonally across it. He realized for the first time that he had neither hat nor overcoat, but he did not care. In ten minutes more he would be in Chicago, in the same city with Eleanor.
Notwithstanding the fact that it was pouring rain when the train pulled into the station, Quin stood on the lowest step of the platform, ready to alight.
"Say, young fellow, you forgot your hat," said a man behind him.
"Didn't have any," answered Quin.