“I expect it would,” said David.
Cram, once started, chatted on. He ran an appraising eye over David’s neat but not new suit, his correct but worn hat, his well-kept but muscular hands. He pulled out a watch, white gold, thin and racy-looking in its general correctness.
“What time you got?” he asked.
David, with a smile, obligingly bit. He hauled out a large fat silver timepiece on the turnip order, and gravely offered its moon face for Cram’s inspection.
“Heirloom?” asked Cram compassionately.
“My grandfather’s,” replied David.
“How the old fellows loved those turnips!” said Cram. “I had an old hick of a grandfather, a farmer out in the sticks. He had one of those, and we couldn’t make him give it up. Same with yours, I suppose.”
“No, he wouldn’t give it up,” said David. “Used it all his life, then gave it to me.” What use to tell Cram how that watch had been carried by its intrepid owner into Africa, and through the jungles of South America? It had lived in China, had skirted the steppes of Russia, had been shipwrecked, and shot at. The dent on its fat back was the mark of a poisoned arrow in Australia. No, his grandfather had never given it up until, called at last to explore a far more distant and unknown country, his dying hand had pressed it into the baby grasp of his grandson.
“Sentiment is a blamed poor thing,” Cram declared; then, as if he had been too friendly, he rose abruptly, nodded and with a brief “See you later,” went off, carrying the newspaper, and David’s time-table as well.
With a sigh of relief, David tackled his bacon and eggs, and a second man slid into the vacant seat. He looked directly at David with a pair of keen blue eyes, around which curled thick fair lashes. His shock of reddish-gold hair had been struggled with, but not subdued. His wide grin disclosed dazzling white teeth, whiter by contrast with the deep sunburn of his skin.