“Guess you'd have to look quick to see him,” laughed Stitt. “Speakin' about automobiles—”
“By gum!” ejaculated Wingate, “you'd have to look somewheres else to find ME. I've got all the auto racin' I want!”
“Speakin' of automobiles,” began Captain Bailey again. No one paid the slightest attention.
“How's Dusenberry, your baby, Hiram?” asked the depot master, turning to Captain Baker. “His birthday's the Fourth, and that's only a couple of days off.”
The proud parent grinned, then looked troubled.
“Why, he ain't real fust-rate,” he said. “Seems to be some under the weather. Got a cold and kind of sore throat. Dr. Parker says he cal'lates it's a touch of tonsilitis. There's consider'ble fever, too. I was hopin' the doctor'd come again to-day, but he's gone away on a fishin' cruise. Won't be home till late to-morrer. I s'pose me and Sophrony hadn't ought to worry. Dr. Parker seems to know about the case.”
“Humph!” grunted the depot master, “there's only two bein's in creation that know it all. One's the Almighty and t'other's young Parker. He's right out of medical school and is just as fresh as his diploma. He hadn't any business to go fishin' and leave his patients. We lost a good man when old Dr. Ryder died. He . . . Oh, well! you mustn't worry, Hiram. Dusenberry'll pull out in time for his birthday. Goin' to celebrate, was you?”
Captain Baker nodded. “Um-hm,” he said. “Sophrony's goin' to bake a frosted cake and stick three candles on it—he's three year old, you know—and I've made him a 'twuly boat with sails,' that's what he's been beggin' for. Ho! ho! he's the cutest little shaver!”
“Speakin' of automobiles,” began Bailey Stitt for the third time.
“That youngster of yours, Hiram,” went on the depot master, “is the right kind. Compared with some of the summer young ones that strike this depot, he's a saint.”