I could not help seeing the beautiful young lady even through the back of my head; and I am sorry to say that I forgot to look at my watch, when we passed Ruggles’s barn and the Grass Brook bridge, as I had intended; and at a quarter past twelve the dummy sizzled into Spangleport, shivering like an over-driven horse. I had the self-possession, however, to stop her when she got there; but I have since wondered that, under the circumstances, I did not run her into the lake, or over the hill to Grass Springs. I had made the distance in just fourteen minutes.
The passengers got out of the car, and for a time I lost sight of the elegant young lady. Higgins came round to me, and declared that we had made a “bully trip.” I was entirely of his opinion; but I was not willing to confess that a certain absentmindedness had induced me to run the machine so as to gain five minutes, and make up one. The conductor left me, and I fancied that he had gone to find the interesting person who had fascinated me, and with whom he seemed to be acquainted.
“Will you allow me to get in there and see the machinery?” said a silvery voice, while I was rubbing up the works.
I turned, and my face felt as though all the steam in the boiler had been discharged upon it when I discovered that the speaker was no other than the bewitching being who was uppermost in my thoughts.
“Certainly,” I replied, leaping to the ground, and endeavoring to imitate the polite gyrations of the gentlemanly conductor.
“Thank you, Mr. Wolf,” added she, with the sweetest of smiles.
Mr. Wolf! Involuntarily my head went up, and I felt prouder of the handle to my name then when the mighty major himself had applied it.
“I’m afraid you will find the engine-room a very dirty and greasy place,” I had the courage to suggest, flustered as I was by having the beautiful girl speak to me—actually speak to me!
“Oh, never mind! I have on my old clothes.”
If these were her old clothes, I wondered what her best were.