Tipps drew a long breath.
“Oh,” said he, “I see it all now. Why, Captain Lee, my friend is perfectly innocent. It was quite a mistake, I assure you; and the best proof of it is that he is a personal friend of our police superintendent, who was on the spot at the time the accident occurred, but we were all thrown into such confusion at the time, that I don’t wonder things were not cleared up.”
Tipps hereupon went into a detailed account of the matter as far as he knew it, at first to the surprise and then to the amusement of Captain Lee. Fortunately for Gurwood, who would have found it difficult to explain the circumstance of his travelling without a ticket, the captain was as prompt to acknowledge his erroneous impression as he had been to condemn. Instead of listening to Tipps, he stopped him by suddenly grasping Gurwood’s hand, and thanking him heartily for the prompt and able assistance he had rendered in rescuing his daughter from her perilous position on the day of the accident.
Of course Edwin would not admit that “rescue” was the proper term to apply to his action, and refused to admit that Miss Lee was in the slightest degree indebted to him, at the same time assuring her and her father that it had afforded him the highest possible pleasure to have been of the slightest service to them. The end of it was that they all became extremely good friends, and the captain in particular became quite jocular in reference to mistakes in general and stealing in particular, until Tipps, pulling out his watch, declared that procrastination was the thief of time, and that as he happened to have business to transact with the police superintendent in reference to the very accident which had caused them all so much trouble, he must unwillingly bid them adieu.
“Stay, Tipps,” exclaimed the captain, rising, “I shall accompany you to the station, and introduce our friend Gurwood to the scene of his future labours, where,” continued the captain, turning with a hearty air and patronising smile to Edwin, “I hope you will lay the foundation of a career which will end in a manager’s or secretary’s situation, or some important post of that sort. Good-bye, Emma I’ll not be back till dinner-time.”
Emma bowed to the young men, and said good-bye to her father with a smile so ineffably captivating, that Edwin resolved then and there to lay the foundation of a career which would end in a wife with nut-brown hair and large lustrous eyes.
Poor Edwin! He was not the first man whose wayward spirit had been chained, his impulses directed to good ends and aims, and his destiny fixed, by the smile of an innocent, loving, pretty girl. Assuredly, also, he was not the last!