The elderly baggage-man regarded the robust champion of religion before him with scorn.
"Well, son, you can report all you like. I've worked in this baggage-room eighteen years, and you're not the first English crank who thought he owned the hull Central Railroad," and he turned on his heel, while the clergyman, with an expression of horror, ambled quickly out of the side door.
McAllister had watched this remarkable proceeding with enthusiastic interest, his round face shining with the excitement of a child.
"Jiminy, but this is great!" he exclaimed, slapping Barney upon the back. "And to think of your doin' it for a livin'! Why I'd sit here all day for nothin'! What happens next? And what becomes of the feller that's just gone out?"
"Oh, you ain't seen half the show yet!" responded Conville, pleased. "It is pretty good fun at times. But, o' course, this is a star performance, and we're sure of our man. Oh, it beats the theayter, all right, all right! Truth's stranger than fiction every time, you bet. Now take this Oyster—why he's a regular cracker-jack! Got sense enough to be an alderman, or president, or anythin', but he keeps right at his own little job of liftin' trunks, an' he ain't never been caught yet. His pal'll be along now any minute."
"How's that?" inquired Chubby with eagerness.
"Why, don'cher see? Jerry's cut off the reg'lar tag, and now the other feller'll present a duplicate of the one Jerry's just hitched on. Great game, 'Foxy Quiller,' eh?"
McAllister admitted delightedly that it was a great game. By George, it beat playin' the horses! At the same time he shivered as he realized how nearly the famous jewels had actually been lost. Wilkins must be an awful bad egg to go and tie up to a gang of that sort!
The baggage-man, serenely unconscious of all that had been taking place behind his back, and apparently not soured by his little set-to with the Englishman, was genially assisting the great American public to find its effects, and beaming on all about him. People streamed in and out, engines coughed and wheezed; from outside came the roar and rattle of the city.
Presently there bounced in a stout person in a yellow and black suit, with white waistcoat and green tie, who mopped his red face with a large silk handkerchief. Rushing up to a porter who seemed to be unoccupied, he threw down a pasteboard check, together with a shining half-dollar, and shouted, "Here, my good feller, that trunk, will you? Quick! The big one with the red letters on it—'B. C. L.' They sent it here from the Astoria instead of to the steamboat dock, and my ship sails at twelve. Now, get a move on!"