The woman quietly looked at her bully, chewing a straw with the utmost nonchalance. “Give us a kiss,” said she. The man’s crest dropped. He said something in an undertone, and got on the car.
Jim needed no further knowledge of this delightful couple to be thoroughly on the boy’s side. It seemed to him that the man was quite capable of keeping a small animal at hand, for the fun of torturing it, and as for the woman—well, if there was her like in hell, Jim determined to be good for the rest of his days.
“All aboard!” cried the conductor, and with a few mighty breaths the iron giant whisked its load out in the open again.
“Stay where you are, son, till I see whether that fellow is playing a trick,” said Jim, and not until he had looked under the platform, up and down the track, and in the waiting rooms, did he give the command, “Come down!”
II
The passenger agent saw the performance with astonishment. “So you had the boy tucked away all the time?” said he. “Just what kind of a game is this?”
“Dunno,” returned Jim. “Let the boy speak for himself. Now, young man, what’s the matter?”
The urchin stood before them, taking them in thoroughly with his sharp little eyes. More big men strolled up. As a particularly fine foil to the boy’s diminutive form, Benny, the baggage smasher, whose overhanging shoulders testified whence came the power that had reduced many a proud Saratoga to elemental conditions, and “Happy Jack,” the mammoth, soot-black, loose-jointed negro porter, placed themselves on either side of him. They made the boy look more like an insect than ever.