Etta laughed at this idea, but, a sudden remembrance coming to her, she asked:
"What time do we arrive at Derby, porter?"
"You should arrive at a quarter to twelve, miss."
"A quarter to twelve—oh, my poor little me, whatever will you do?"
"Not meaning to say that you've forgotten to ask them to meet you, miss?"
"Meaning the very thing—please get me a form, oh, lots of them. I must wire to Griggs. Don't let the train go until I've done it. Whatever should I do if no one met me?"
"I'll stop it if I have to hold the engine myself. Now, miss, you take these 'ere. That's the name of a Spring 'andicap winner on one of them—you scrat it out and write your own telegram. We ain't agoin' to have you out in the cornfields at that time of night, I know. Just write away and don't you flurry yourself."
Etta needed no pressing invitation. She wrote two telegrams as fast as her eager fingers could set down the messages—one to Fletcher, the coachman at the Hall, one to Griggs, the butler, who would be the most astonished man in all Derbyshire that night when he read it. These the porter gathered up together with a liberal monetary provision to frank them, and the train was just about to start when who should appear again but the white-haired nonagenarian, grumbling and shuffling and plainly seeking a carriage, despite the fact that he had been lately seated in it.
"Why, here's old nannygoat broke out again," cried the astonished porter, and running after him he exclaimed: "Here, grandfather, train goin', comprenny, inside oh, chucky walkey—now then, smart, or I'm blowed if I don't put you in the lorst luggage horfiss."
They bundled the old man into a carriage; the engine whistled, the train steamed majestically from the station.