“For whom do you want a special?” asked the keeper of the clippings.
“For myself; that’s ‘‘whom.’”
Now, the keeper of the clippings gave the young man one withering glance, and turned away with a hauteur in the presence of which the President would have paled, as the morning star pales before the rising sun.
At that moment a comfortable looking man stepped from the elevator. That was the little man’s chief.
“Hello, Billy,” said the General Passenger Agent, giving the young detective a glad hand, “are you all packed?”
“All packed,” said Billy, glancing at a hand grip that till now had been hidden beneath a fall overcoat that hung on his arm.
“Then let us be off. We’ve got a special engine and Pullman car waiting at the station for you,” and the two men went down together.
“Now, have I made of myself an ass?” mused the keeper of the clippings. “I would have wagered my position that he was the editor of the Litchfield Lamplight, and he goes to the river by special train over our road. Ay, over the Alton,” and he closed his desk with a bang.
“I want you to make a mile a minute to-night,” said the General Passenger Agent, offering a cigar to the engineer, as the slim eight-wheeler moved out of the station shed.
As the car clicked over the switches, the young detective turned to a cold lunch that the black boy had builded in the buffet, for he had not eaten since morning. He had scarcely commenced his meal when the heavy sleeper began to slam her flanges up against the rail and show him that she was rolling. The Alton was one of the oldest of the western roads, and upon this occasion she would take her place as pace-maker for the rest, just as she had taught the Atlantic lines the use of sleeping and dining cars. Indeed it is here, upon these very rails, that we are wont to picture young Mr. Pullman, with a single blanket and a wisp broom, swinging himself into his first sleeper, that was not his, but a rented car.