He met Ned Halloway at the billiard-room, and when Ned asked him to take a cue he consented. Billiards was a game in which he was apt to lose—himself, at any rate; yet to-day his mind was enough on the alert to enable him, after a time, to glance at the clock over the bar in the next room. It was forty-five minutes past eight.
They began another game. Later he looked again at the clock. A quarter of nine. After another game he looked up once more. “Fifteen minutes to ni—. Say, Ned, what’s the matter with that clock?” Ned looked at it, then at his watch. “Why, it’s stopped!”
“You settle—see you later.” And Thomas was gone like a shot.
This time he had the rare pleasure of noting how the rear car of a train grows rapidly smaller as it recedes. In a moment the train disappeared around the curve before mentioned.
“Say, Mr. Morley, you’ve time to miss the next, easy,” said the baggageman, dryly.
Thomas was vexed, but he said pleasantly: “When is it due?”
“Half-past two. Better wait here and make sure of it.”
“Oh, dry up! No; do the other thing; it’s on me.”
After this little duty had been performed, Thomas, with an irrelevancy of action that might have struck an observer as amusing, made his way to the Y.M.C.A. rooms to read the magazines.