Dorothy might have retorted that she preferred the hysterical crowd to the doubtful pleasure of his company, but she held her tongue.
Instead she smiled noncommittally and held out her hand to Tavia.
“Come along, dear,” she begged. “There may be something we can do out there.”
“I tell you there ain’t nobody hurt,” again put in the small, squat man in a faintly irritable voice. “Better stay right here—”
But the two girls were already half way to the door, Tavia accompanying her chum grumblingly.
“Every time anything interesting happens, Doro, you have to come along and spoil everything.”
“If you call that fellow interesting, then I am disappointed in your common sense,” retorted Dorothy tartly. “Sometimes, Tavia, I really think you need a nurse.”
“Well, any time that I feel like engaging one, I’ll tell you,” drawled Tavia, angered in her turn, and there fell an uncomfortable silence between the girls.
Mechanically they walked through the excited crowd on the platform to the spot where the car had jumped the track. There it stood, its wheels on the gravel bed of the roadside, tilted crazily and only held upright by the cars in front and at the rear of it.
“The people in this car must have been jolted up for fair. Thought it was an earthquake or something,” murmured Tavia, interest getting the better of her anger at Dorothy. “It’s a wonder we didn’t have an honest-to-goodness wreck out of this.”