"Keep still now. Which of you is joggling?"
The joggling continued, and at last the boy twisted and punched himself awake and into a sitting posture, and finally the look of unmixed astonishment with which he took in his surroundings, gave way to one of unmistakable fun.
"Here's a go!" he at last informed himself. "I've come a journey and no mistake; made a night of it sure as I live. Lucky I waked up first of this crowd. If somebody had sat down on Wolfie now by mistake, there might have been trouble. Guess I'll look about me."
He shook himself free from the cloak and sauntered out on the platform. The gray dawn was just glimmering over the frozen earth, the world looked snowy and icy and desolate. On swept the train, and not a familiar object met his eye. Did Tode feel dreary and homesick, lost in the whizzing strangeness, sorry he had come? Did he want to shrink away from sight and sound? Did he feel that he would give anything in the world to be landed at that moment somewhere near Broadway in Albany? Not a bit of it! Nothing of the sort entered his brain. He feel homesick! Why his home was anywhere and nowhere. Since that day, years ago, when his mother died, he had had less of a home than even before. Sometimes he slept on the cellar floor with his father, but oftener in the street, in a stable, or curled in a barrel when he had the good fortune to find one—anywhere; but never in all his life had he spent such a comfortable night as this last had been. But his father? Oh dear, you don't know what fathers can become to their children, if you think he missed him. Please remember his last act had been to kick his son out of a cellar into the snow; but Tode bore him no ill-will for this or any other attention. Oh no, nor good-will either. Why, his father was simply less than nothing to him. So this morning, without an idea as to what he was going to do next, he stood and watched himself being whirled into New York, with no feeling save one of extreme satisfaction at the success of his last night's plan, and alert only to keep out of the reach of the conductor. The car door slammed behind him, and he turned quickly, as two gentlemen came out. One of them eyed him closely, and finally addressed him.
"Who are you with, my lad?"
Tode chuckled inwardly at this question, but added promptly enough,
"A man in there," nodding his head toward the car which contained Mr. Hastings.
"Humph! the man must be crazy to let his servant travel in such a suit as that in this bitter weather."
This remark was addressed to his companion as the two passed into the next car. Tode chuckled outright this time; he had a new idea.
"That's the talk," he informed himself. "I'm his servant; just it prezackly—much obliged. I hadn't thought of that arrangement before, but I like the plan first rate. Maybe Wolfie and I will get another night or so together by the means."