Thomas squeezed her hand and left her, feeling rather blue.
The railroad track was but a block away, and he walked over to it, not with suicidal intent, but just that he might tantalize himself with a view of the train as it sped by, which it should do in about a minute.
“At any rate,” said he, “it won’t be going around that dreadful curve.”
It was the last of December, and the sun had set. When he reached the track he saw, far away, a glimmer of the headlight of the five-o’clock express.
Nearer and nearer it came. A moment more and it would rush by like a meteor. But it didn’t. It slackened up at the very corner on which Thomas stood, to allow an official of the road to jump off.
Thomas was not slow, if he did miss trains now and then. He swung himself on to the smoker.
“Go’n’ far?” asked the brakeman.
“To New York,” was his reply.
“You’re in luck.”