"So it is doubly fortunate that I happen to have a few pennies left over from my last month's pay," laughed the captain.
"But I am a stranger to you, sir, and you don't know that I am honest enough to repay you, even if I ever get my money back," objected Rob, flushing with the embarrassment that money troubles always cause those not used to them.
"Haven't you just told me all about yourself?" suggested the captain, gravely; "and can't I read 'honesty' written on every feature of your face? Besides, one must always be willing to risk somethink in an investment from which he hopes to gain rich returns in the form of self-satisfaction. So it's all right, every way you look at it, and I think we'll buy the use of a west-bound wire for the next half-hour or so."
Thus saying, Captain Astley led the way to the telegraph-office, into which Rob doubtfully followed him. There the former first persuaded the station-agent to wire the conductor of the train that had brought our young traveller thus far, an inquiry concerning him and his ticket. Then he wired the Pullman conductor to look after Rob's suit-case and deliver it to the station-agent at Tacoma, to be kept by him until called for by Captain Astley.
"I put it that way," explained the latter, "because the Tacoma agent knows me, while he doesn't know Robert Hinckley; and, as we are going on together to-morrow, it won't make any difference which of us receives the bag."
A third despatch was sent to the Tacoma agent of the steamship company, notifying him that unforeseen circumstances prevented Mr. Robert Hinckley from sailing on the Oriental, requesting him to hold over a trunk marked Hinckley and bearing Nagasaki check 907, and asking him to meet the following day's Coast Limited at the Tacoma station, with money to refund the price of the forfeited ticket.
"I don't know whether or not he will do that," said Captain Astley; "but perhaps he will, seeing that he is pretty well acquainted with me. At any rate, it is worth trying for. You may send the replies to these messages up to the X Hotel," he added, turning to the operator.
"But I am not staying at the X Hotel," objected Rob, remembering how very elegant and expensive that establishment had looked when he passed it a half-hour before. "I can't afford it."
"Not as my guest?" asked the army man.
"I don't see how you can think of doing so much for me," blurted out Rob. "I never heard of any one being so kind to a perfect stranger."