The boys stopped with the sensation of having received a blow, and returned to their rooms feeling very forlorn. There everything looked cheerful and homelike. The windows were suffused with the soft light of late evening in a high latitude, and the prevailing aspect was so peaceful that they were more than ever inclined to think they were dreaming. When they looked about them, however, and saw the trunk was gone, the reality of the situation returned. When they had come from the train the traveling-rugs and pillows had been thrown across a couch, and there they still lay, not having been noticed by the men who took the trunk. Mr. Porter’s handbag was gone, but a small one which Sidney had carried was on the dresser in the boys’ room. That bag and the rugs were all that remained of their belongings.
“I don’t believe father sent for his trunk,” said Raymond; “the authorities have simply seized it.”
“I’m afraid that is so,” replied Sidney; “but I can’t think of any reason unless there has been a mistake, and father has been taken for some one else. Let’s go down to the office; the man there speaks English, and we may learn something.”
Accordingly they descended to the office and found the English-speaking clerk.
“Do you know the officer who just went out with our trunk?” asked Sidney.
The clerk looked at him hesitatingly for a moment without replying; then after a cautious glance about the lobby, where there happened to be no one within hearing, he said,—
“You are not Germans, are you?”
“Of course not,” replied Sidney; “we are Americans.”
“But your father speaks German.”
“Yes, he does, but we don’t. His mother was German.”