“Where is Mr. Merriwell?”
“I do not know,” confessed the stage manager, who had been deputized for the occasion by Frank to look out for tickets, and make necessary arrangements.
“He hasn’t come?”
“No; but he’ll be here before the train pulls out. You know he has a way of always appearing on time.”
Hodge stopped in his walk, and stared at Havener.
“I’d like to know when he left the hotel,” said Bart. “I called for him several times before coming here, but each time I found he was not in his room, and no one knew anything about him. His bill was not settled, either.”
“But his baggage came down with the others,” said Havener.
“Because the hotel people permitted it, as he was vouched for by Mr. Carson, who seems to be well known to everybody in this city.”
“You don’t suppose anything has happened to detain him, do you?” anxiously asked the actress. “I do hope we shall not make another bad start, same as we did before. Agnes Kirk says she knows something will happen, for Mr. Merriwell gave away the cat Mascot.”
“Agnes Kirk is forever prophesying something dismal,” said Hodge. “She’s a regular croaker. If she didn’t have something to croak about, she wouldn’t know what to do. She declared the cat a hoodoo in the first place, but now she says we’ll have bad luck because Frank let it go. She makes me a trifle weary!”