CHAPTER X
Once more I sought the booking office at Euston.
“The Express has left Prince’s Stage at Liverpool, sir. Will be here in about three hours now, sir,” was the response to my question.
I turned away, dismissed my cab, and started out through the great pillars of the entrance. Three hours more and Dorothy would be here. Tom and I, with the wave-measuring machine, had taken the first boat, which happily left the evening after our interview with Ordway. Dorothy, following a week later, had arrived at Liverpool and was speeding to London. It had been hard to wait the week, filled as it had been with work, but it seemed as if these last hours would never go. Three hours to wait! I had paced the platform of Euston for two already, and I walked out now towards Bloomsbury, passing slowly through its pleasant squares, and watching the foliage behind their guarding railings. Before I knew it, I was in front of the British Museum, and I glanced at my watch. “As good a place to wait as any,” I said to myself, and I crossed the courtyard and started up the steps. Just then a man, hurrying out, slipped at the top of the stone steps and fell heavily, striking his head and lying unconscious where he fell. As it chanced, I was the only spectator, save for a single policeman, and, as I hurried forward, I noticed a Theta Sigma Rho fraternity pin on the waistcoat of the fallen man. I reached him first, the policeman coming up a second later, and together we raised the unconscious form and carried the man to an office, where we placed him on a lounge. I read the name on the reverse of his pin. “E. S. Hamerly.” As he lay there, breathing heavily, I watched him with that interest which a fellow countryman, and far more than that, a member of one’s own fraternity, in distress in a foreign land inspires. He was a clean-cut young fellow, neatly but very simply clad, and I noticed a red acid stain on his sleeve. I had time for no more, for the doctor came hurrying in.
“Only a scalp wound,” he said, as he made his brief examination. “I can bring him round in a minute.”
A vigorous application of cold water, an aromatic to his nose, and the patient sneezed and opened his eyes. As he gazed around I stepped forward.
“Mr. Hamerly,” I said, “I’m Orrington of Columbia. I’m a Theta Sigma Rho man, myself, as I see you are. You’ve had a nasty fall, but you’re coming out all right. I’m going to see you home.”
Hamerly smiled rather wanly. “I don’t feel very energetic,” he said. “I’d be mighty glad to have you. I’m in lodgings up on Half-Moon Street.”
The doctor broke in. “That’s enough talking for the present. Let me fix up your head and you can go all right.”