"It is. I wired yesterday—"
"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?"
"Yes, I—"
"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid daown with it 'baout ten o'clock."
"But why the—but I wired yesterday afternoon!"
"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it over."
"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely, "is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line.
"I can leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber suggested after a pause.
The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign till a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the offering with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it. "I'll look after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?"
"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward the door.