“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it!” protested Mr. Hilliard; “you mustn’t think of such a thing. I am stopping with a cousin of mine, and he has abundance of room for us all, and expects us. It’s all settled.”
After considerable discussion only did Philip consent to so unexpected a change. It disturbed him. Gerald rather enjoyed the odd plan. He yielded.
“By the bye, Mr. Hilliard,” he said as the train sped forward with a lengthened shadow, “you said you left New York yesterday. I thought you expected to come up to Youngwood on Saturday.”
“O, so I did,” returned Mr. Hilliard, in his careless manner; “but—but I decided to wait, for some business reasons. I should have been very sorry not to meet you just as I did. Perhaps, if you don’t find yourselves too tired by the time we finish dinner to-night, we will go out and look up something that will entertain us.”
The proposal sounded pleasantly. They fell to talking of sights. The acquaintance advanced rapidly.
After a little time the train paused before a small junction-station only about thirty miles from the edge of New York city. It did not go on. They looked out. Men were to be seen about the locomotive. They left the car with the other travelers and walked up to the group. Something was wrong with the engine. After some ten minutes of uncertainty a couple of brakemen furnished the information that the train must wait for half an hour at least. “We can get her all right again by that time,” said the engineer. If the passengers chose to do so they could stretch their legs until the whistle called them.
“We may as well pass the time that way,” laughed Mr. Hilliard. “It is provoking. We’ll go over and take a look at that railroad hotel they are altering.”
Gerald caught up the satchel (besides their umbrella, the only baggage the boys carried); there was a supply of ginger-snaps in that bag. They walked out of the hot sunshine and sat down in the shade of the wide veranda of the railroad restaurant, which displayed a very gay sign, “Lafayette Fox, Proprietor.” Mr. Hilliard gave them a spirited account of an adventure he had met with while on a sketching tour in Cuba; and when Gerald suggested that he might entertain himself and them by making a pencil drawing then and there of the motionless train and the groups of people gathered near it he assented. “I’ll run over and get my pencils and a block of paper in my bag. It’ll only take a minute.” They watched him hurry away—certainly the most obliging man in the world.
Now, the restaurant was being transformed into the glory of a hotel. Back of the rear rooms rose the yellow-pine frame of a large wing, intended to contain, when finished, at least seven or eight good-sized rooms.
“Let’s go along this piazza,” proposed Philip, as several minutes elapsed and Mr. Hilliard did not put in his re-appearance. (Mr. Hilliard, it may be explained, was struggling with the tricky lock of his satchel, kneeling on the floor of the car.)