The next morning the lunch-room door was ominously closed—and the staff went breakfastless. By listening at the keyhole, and from an occasional glimpse through the window, they knew that Dutchy was inside.
But to pleadings, threats, and door-kickings the occupant was, to all intents and purposes, oblivious. Things began to look serious for the staff and station hands who were wont to depend on Dutchy for their grub-stakes.
Thornley whistled softly and pulled at his pipe, his feet on the dispatcher’s desk.
“He’ll have to open up when Number Ninety-Seven pulls in,” Thornley was saying, more by way of reassuring himself than of presenting any new view of the case to MacDonald. “The company won’t stand for any inconvenience to the passengers—that is” he hastened to amend, “not of this kind. What? They’ve got a sort of lien on that joint, and if he waits for them to get after him he’ll get into trouble. Wish Brett were back—he’d make him open up quick, I guess. What’s the matter with Number Ninety-Seven, anyhow? Thought you said she was on time?”
“So she is,” said MacDonald, grinning. “Hear her?”
From the eastward came the hoarse shriek from the whistle of a five-hundred class.
“Guess I’ll go down,” said Thornley. “Coming?”
MacDonald nodded and got up from his chair. The two men reached the platform in time to acknowledge a flirt of the hand from Sanders in the cab as the big machine, wheel-tires sparking from the tight-set brakes, rolled slowly past them, coming to a halt farther on.
Simultaneously the door of the lunch-room swung wide open, and on the threshold, completely filling the opening with his bulk, stood Dutchy. In his left hand he held his bell, which he began to ring clamorously; in his right hand, almost but not quite concealed behind his apron, was no less a weapon than a substantial-looking rolling-pin. A crowd of passengers began to surge toward the restaurant, and among them mingled the hungry railroad men of Dry Notch.
“Come on!” shouted Thornley exultantly. “I knew he’d have to open up. Here’s where we feed—h’m?”