Mrs. Perry frowned.
"I think that is the very stupidest motto in the world," said Jeanette indignantly. "It seems to me that the real man is he who goes through the world expecting the best things; and if the worst things come, he meets them courageously and with the belief that the misfortune is but momentary."
"Perhaps you are right," said Mr. Furniss; "indeed, for people like you two ladies, whose lines are cast in pleasant places, you are right; but I've lived in the Bad Lands where humanity is raw, and where the man who isn't alert for trouble is sure to meet disaster. I don't say I go around looking for trouble, but——"
He did not finish the sentence. Came a hissing of steam, a screeching of brakes, then a crash.
The man was flung sprawling across the table. Mrs. Perry and Jeanette were jerked from their seats. The dishes were swept crashing to the floor. The train had come to a stop.
In a panic the passengers rushed to the doors.
Jeanette and Mrs. Perry lay huddled in a corner of the seat.
Laboriously Mr. Furniss gathered himself up from the table. "I expected something like this," he grunted. "This is a bad neck of woods."
"Is—is it a hold-up?" murmured Mrs. Perry, with her arms around Jeanette.
"Yes, but not the kind of hold-up you mean," answered Tom Furniss, with a wry smile. "It's a hold-up due to faulty signals, or one of those unaccountable accidents that all railroad men must be prepared for. It's a collision. We've run into a train ahead, I suspect. You're not hurt?" he asked solicitously.