“Why, she said she marked it to be put in the hold,” said Betty. “Has she asked if it’s there?” And Will was hurried off to find Madeline and inquire.
It wasn’t easy finding anybody or anything on that dock. The edges were crowded with people, the centre was filled with a confused mass of struggling truck horses and shouting drivers who were all terribly anxious to get somewhere, and didn’t seem to make the least progress in spite of all their noise. Deck-hands were busy with trunks and boxes, which they fastened to a pulley and swung out over the heads of the people, and then up and down again, into the hold. Once in a while a hansom wriggled its way through the drays to let out an excited passenger, who always acted as if he had expected to find the boat gone without him.
That was the way Bob acted, as she jumped out of her hansom and ran up the gangplank, holding a small boy tight by each hand and not paying the least attention to Babe and Betty, who shrieked frantically at her from their lookout on the upper deck.
“I had to bring these,” she explained breathlessly, when the Smallest Sister had intercepted her and conducted her to her friends. “The housekeeper took two off my hands for the day and the coachman took two, but nobody would take Jimmie or Joe.”
“A guy on de dock’s tryin’ to spiel wid ye,” announced Jimmie, who had lost no time in climbing up on the ship’s railing; and there, sure enough, was Mr. Richard Blake, with a fresh supply of flowers, making a megaphone of his hands and trying to ask where he should find Madeline.
“Somewhere down there,” shrieked back Betty. “But you’d better come up here and wait. Babbie and Mrs. Hildreth haven’t even come yet,” she added to the others. “What if they should be too late?”
“Seasoned travelers never come on board till the last minute,” said Nan. “It shows that you’re new to the business to be standing around like this.”
“Oh, but it’s such fun to watch everything,” objected Babe. “I don’t mind people’s knowing that it’s my first trip. It is, you see. What’s that bell ringing for?”
Mr. Wales looked at his watch. “It means that in five minutes more they’re going to put us fellows off.”
At that Babe got into a corner with her mother and father, and Betty into another with her family, leaving Bob to entertain Mr. Blake until Madeline sauntered up with the cheerful news that her trunk seemed to be lost “for keeps.”