Rod got a few hours’ sleep that night after all, and in the morning he and Engineman Stump accepted an invitation to take breakfast with President Vanderveer, his daughter, and Smiler, in the President’s private car. This car had just returned from the extended western trip on which it had started two months before, when Rod was seeking employment on the road. As neither Eltje nor her father had heard a word concerning him in all that time, they now plied him with questions. When he finished his story Eltje exclaimed:
“I think it is perfectly splendid, Rod, and if I were only a boy I would do just as you have done! Wouldn’t you, papa?”
“I am not quite sure that I would, my dear,” answered her father, with a smile. “While I heartily approve of a boy who wishes to become a railroad man, beginning at the very bottom of the ladder and working his way up, I cannot approve of his leaving his home with the slightest suspicion of a stain resting on his honor if he can possibly help it. Don’t you think, Rodman,” he added kindly, turning to the lad, “that the more manly course would have been to have stayed in Euston until you had solved the problem of who really did disable your cousin’s bicycle?”
“I don’t know but what it would,” replied the young man, thoughtfully; “but it would have been an awfully hard thing to do.”
“Yes, I know it would. It would have been much harder than going hungry or fighting tramps or capturing express robbers; still it seems to me that it would have been more honorable.”
“But Uncle turned me out of the house.”
“Did he order you to leave that very night, or did he ask you to make arrangements to do so at some future time, and promise to provide for you when you did go?”
“I believe he did say something of that kind,” replied Rod, hesitatingly.
“Do you believe he would have said even that the next morning!”
“Perhaps not, sir.”