"Well! well! well!" muttered the station agent in a daze, but hastening to place the stop signal.
Bart went inside and unceremoniously approached the office desk. He wrote on a slip of paper, placed it in his pocket, shifted the trunk to the head end of the platform, and stationed himself beside it.
"Is all that you're telling me true?" propounded the bewildered station agent, sidling up to Bart's side.
"Every word of it."
"Where did you get the hand car?"
"I found it. Oh, by the way! I wish you would explain to me about that railroad; what is it, what excuse has it got for existing?"
"Oh, that?" said the station agent "It's the old quarry spur. A company built it five years ago with grand plans for shipping mottled tiling slate all over the country. Their money gave out and the scheme was never put through."
"And the hand car?"
"There's four men who live here who got the privilege of digging out slate for a big plumbers' supply house in the city. They go to the quarry and back on the hand car daily. Did they loan it to you?"
"No," said Bart, "I was in a hurry, and had to borrow it without permission."