“What have you been doing to have the general manager send for you at this time of night?” Kathie wanted to know. The question was put gently, as from one ready either to sympathize or congratulate—whichever might be needed.
“You’ll probably read all about it in the Herald to-morrow,” said Larry, gruffly; and with that he tied his shoe string and found his cap and went to obey the summons.
It is hardly putting it too strongly to say that Larry Donovan found the six city squares intervening between home and the headquarters building a rather rocky road to travel as he made his third trip over the same ground in a single evening. The timidity streak was having things all its own way now, and he thought, and said, he’d rather be shot than to have to face what he supposed he was in for—namely, the plaudits of a lot of people who would insist upon making a fuss over a thing that was as much a bit of good luck as anything else.
But, as often happens, if you’ve noticed it, the anticipation proved to be much worse than the reality. Reaching the railroad headquarters-station building he found that the “Flying Pigeon” had long since gone on its way eastward, the crowd had dispersed, and there was nobody at all in the upper corridor of the building when he passed through it on his way to the general manager’s suite of rooms at the far end.
Still more happily, after he had rather diffidently let himself in through the ante-room, he found only the square-shouldered, grave-faced general manager sitting alone at the great desk between the windows. There was a curt nod for a greeting; the nod indicating an empty chair at the desk end. Larry sat on the edge of the chair with his cap in his hands, and the interview began abruptly.
“You are John Donovan’s son, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“H’m; so you’re the fellow who was with my Dick. [What made you run away and go home] after you got back with the 331?”
