“A ‘racket’ of that sort has nothing to do with tennis, Miss Babcock, at your service; and ‘Cookies’ are just Cook’s tourists. All railroaders call them that; and I suppose the ‘racket’ was a cheap excursion the school-ma’ams were taking. Odd, isn’t it? That though all Andy’s trouble came from the railroad he claims to belong to it as one of its ‘boys.’ He’s rippin’, Andy is. He told father ’t he ‘teached school’ himself, once! But he got so tired of it that the sight of a spelling-book made him sick.”
“It does me, too,” said Alfy, with sympathy.
“So he ‘cut and run,’ and rode on trains in every direction as long as his money held out. Then he stole the ride that ended his travels right here in Denver. Hello! where’s Dad?”
They had loitered along the way and he had simply outstripped them. So without even a quarter in his purse but in his most lordly air, Leslie hailed a cab to carry them to the hotel he knew was that habitually patronized by his father; and a few minutes later they rode up to the entrance in state.
An attendant hastened to the curb to assist the “young ladies” out of the cab, but the hackman laid a detaining hand upon Leslie’s shoulder with the remark:
“Fares, please.”
“Eh? Just settle that with Mr. Daniel Ford, inside. Here, Buttons, you find Mr. Ford and ask him to step here. It’ll be all right, Jehu, and let’s hurry, girls, else we’ll be late for dinner.”
He started to enter the building but the cabman retained his hold on the lad’s shoulder and remarked:
“No, you don’t! You may be all right and so may your Mr. Ford but, as for me, I never heard tell of him and money talks. Fares, please.”