"Carlo shivered as he hung about the door leading to Mr. Sawyer's room, and he wondered why the fly which always came for passengers by the early London train had not yet made its appearance, little imagining that not by the comfortable express, but third class in a slow 'parliamentary' Mr. Sawyer's journey was to be accomplished. And, when at last the thin figure of the under-master emerged from the doorway, it went to the boy's heart to see that he himself was carrying the small black bag which held his possessions.
"'I have come to wish you good-bye again, sir,' said Carlo, 'and I am sorry I didn't shake hands last night. And—and—I believe Jack would have come too, if he'd thought of it.'
"Mr. Sawyer's eyes glistened as he shook the small hand held out to him.
"'Thank you, my boy,' he said earnestly, how much I thank you you will never know.'
"'And is that all your luggage?' asked Carlo, half out of curiosity, half by way of breaking the melancholy of the parting, which somehow gave him a choky feeling about the throat.
"'Oh no,' said Mr. Sawyer, entering into the boy's shrinking from anything like a scene, 'oh no, I sent on my box by the carrier last Saturday. It would have been rather too big to carry.' He spoke in his usual commonplace tone, more cheerful, less nervous perhaps than its wont. Then once more, with a second hearty shake of the hand,
"'Good-bye again, my boy, and God bless you." And Carlo, his eyes dim in spite of his intense determination to be above such weakness, stood watching the dark figure, conspicuous against the white-sheeted ground and steel-blue early morning winter sky.
"'I wonder if we've been right about him,' he said to himself. 'I'm glad I came, any way.'
"And there came a day when others beside little Carlo himself were glad, oh so glad, that he had 'come' that snowy morning to bid the solitary traveller Godspeed."