This proof that it was inability and not contempt that had shown in the barkeeper’s eyes burned in James’ heart like a little flame. He took out one twenty-dollar bill and put it in a separate pocket. Twenty dollars he could understand.
He then made for the barns, wondering what man it was whose legs carried him so jauntily.
This was the beginning of the great mystery—the disappearance of Car 809.
How so large and eminently practical a thing as a trolley car—a thing so blatantly modern and, withal, so hard and heavy—could vanish from the face of the earth, and leave neither track nor rack behind, was a problem that caused silver threads to appear amid the gold and bald spots of the officers of the Suburban Trolley Company.
With it went the motorman and conductor; gone; vanished; vamoosed; dissipated into thin air.
The thing was, and then it was not. That is all they ever knew about it. The facts are these:
When James arrived in the yard he approached his running-mate and poked him in the chest with a dramatic forefinger. The running-mate looked at the forefinger and then at James.
“Changed your spots again?” he inquired.
“Nup,” said James, hitting himself mightily upon the chest. “Here is Willie Wally Astor, and that’s me.”
“Grounded again?” sniffed the conductor. “Where do you feel it worst?”