"You must be a stranger in this part of the state," volunteered a big young fellow, who had just come out of the waiting-room. "Did you never hear of the flower-giving at the Junction?"
"No. What's the idea? Is it done on a bet? Or is it an 'ad' for the man on the sign over there?"
"Neither. It has been Peter Grimm's custom for twenty years or more. Ever since I first knew him."
"And it isn't an ad?"
"No," was the enigmatic answer as the big young man moved off in the wake of the lad. "It's Peter Grimm."
The boy meanwhile had reached the last of the passengers. She was middle-aged and motherly-looking. She peered down at him with more than common interest as he went through his pat little presentation formula. A psychologist would have gathered much from the lad's tense, flushed face and in the oddly strained look of the big blue eyes. To this woman, he was only a thin, lonely looking youngster, whose face held an unconscious appeal that she answered without reading it.
"I am very much obliged to Mr. Peter Grimm for sending me this lovely flower," she said, a little patronisingly, as she sniffed at the half-opened Killarney rose she held.
"You need not be," answered the boy. "He didn't really send it to you. In fact, I'm quite sure he never even heard of you. He just sent it because he is good and because——"
"Because he loves flowers," suggested the woman as the boy hesitated.
"No," corrected the boy, in his gentle, old-fashioned diction, wherein lurked the faintest trace of foreign accent, "I never heard him say anything about loving flowers. But I know the flowers love him."