Brockway, who is vainly endeavoring to persuade an elderly maiden lady to leave her canary in charge of the porter during the day: "That is central time you have, Mr. Tucker; mountain time is one hour slower. Careful, Mr. Perkins; let me take your grip. You won't need it to-day."
The Elderly Maiden Lady: "Now, Mr. Brockway, are you sure it'll be perfectly safe to leave Dicky with the porter?"
Mr. Somers, sotto voce in Brockway's ear: "Hang Dicky! Let's go to breakfast."
The Gadfly: "Mr. ah—Brockway, you will oblige me by sitting at my table. I don't ah—purpose to lose sight of you, sir."
Brockway, to the porter: "All out, John?"
The Porter, with the cavernous smile of his kind: "All out, sah."
Brockway, sandwiching himself between two of the unescorted ladies: "All aboard for the dining-room!"
So much Harry Quatremain, standing aloof, saw and heard, and was minded to go back to President Vennor and make his report accordingly. But the yard crew, already busily dismembering the "Flying Kestrel," whipped the Tadmor and the private car out into the yard, and the secretary was left standing in the unquiet crowd.
Having nothing better to do, he sauntered across to the depot, not intending to spy further upon the passenger agent, but rather cudgelling his brain to devise some pretext upon which he could safely lie to the President and so appease his self-respect. The pretext did not suggest itself; and after looking into the dining-room, where he saw Brockway and his thirty-odd in one corner, and the Burtons, whom he knew by sight, in another, he strolled out to the end of the building where the yard-crew was switching the Naught-fifty to its place on the short spur. The President was standing on the front platform; and Quatremain, having no plausible falsehood ready, reported the simple fact.
"Very good," said his employer. "Now go back and keep your eye on him; and, at precisely five minutes of eight, come and tell me where he is and what he is doing."