"Get it! Yes, when the daisies are blooming over us. I want it now, Larry. Whenever I run up against anything solid it's always one of these fly-by-nights. What do you think of going upstairs in the dark and hauling out a red silk hat and a pair of gilt slippers, instead of a sample card of carvers? Well, that's what a guy did for me last fall down at Logansport. Sent me two burial caskets full of chorus-girl props instead of my trunk. Oh, yes, I'll get it—get it in the neck. Here, send this grip to my room."
The clerk pursed his lips and looked over his key-rack. He knew that he had no room—none that would suit Stephen Dodd—had known it when he saw him entering the door, the snow covering his hat and shoulders, his grip in his hands.
"Going to stay all night with us, Stephen?" Larry asked.
"Sure! What do you think I'm here for? Blowing and snowing outside fit to beat the band. What do you want me to do—bunk in the station?"
"H'm, h'm," muttered the clerk, studying the key-rack and name-board as if they were plans of an enemy's country.
Steve looked up. When a clerk began to say "H'm," Steve knew something was wrong.
"Full?"
"Well, not exactly full, Steve, but—h'm—we've got the 'Joe Gridley Combination' with us overnight, and about everything——"
"Go on—go on—what'd I tell you? Up ag'in these fly-by-nights as usual!" blurted out Steve.
The clerk raised his hand deprecatingly.