Nevertheless he took it—the advice—which also necessitated taking the train.
Even in so short a time the news seemed to have spread with most mysterious speed, that Daniel the Mystic had canceled his second night's engagement and would be leaving us on the 10:50. Quite a crowd went to the depot to see him off. We boys tagged along, too, keeping pace with Judge Priest and Doctor Lake and Major Joe Sam Covington and certain other elderly residents, who, as they tramped along, maintained a sort of irregular formation, walking two by two just as they did when the Veterans' Camp turned out for a funeral or a reunion.
There must have been something wrong down the road that night with the 10:50. Usually she was anywhere from one to three hours late, but this night she strangely came in on time. She was already whistling for the crossing above Kattersmith's brickyard when we arrived, moving in force. D. C. Davello saw us from afar and remembered some business that took him briskly back behind the freight shed. But Daniel the Mystic sat on a baggage truck with a handkerchief to his face, and seemed not to see any of us coming until our advance guard filed up and flanked him.
“Well, suh,” said Judge Priest, “you had a signal honor paid you in this community tonight.”
Daniel the Mystic raised his head. The light from a tin reflector lamp. shone on his face and showed its abundant damages. You would hardly have known Daniel the Mystic for the same person. His gorgeousness and grandeur of person had fallen from him like a discarded garment, and his nose dripped redly.
“I—had—what?” he answered, speaking somewhat thickly because of his swollen lip.
“A mighty signal honor,” said Judge Priest, in his thin whine. “In the presence of a representative gatherin' of our best people you were licked by the most efficient and the quickest-actin' scout that ever served in General John Morgan's entire cavalry command.”
But the reply of Daniel the Mystic, if he made one, was never heard of living man, because at that moment the 10:50 accommodation came in and her locomotive began exhausting.