“Thank you, Miss; it shuah is a pleasuah to wait on a young lady like you, Miss. It shuah is, Miss. Ah wish you a prospec jounay, Miss, Ah do.”
“I wonder what is keeping Mr. Wakeham,” said Jane. “I am very sorry to keep you waiting, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. Larry, would you mind?”
“Certainly not,” said Larry, hurrying off toward the baggage car. In a few minutes Mr. Wakeham appeared with the doleful news that the trunk was not in the car and must have been left behind.
“I am quite sure it is there,” said Jane, setting off herself for the car, the crestfallen Mr. Wakeham and the porter following behind her.
At the door of the car the baggage man met her with regretful apologies. “The trunk must have been left behind.”
He was brusquely informed by Jane that she had seen it put on board.
“Then it must have been put off by mistake at Calgary?” This suggestion was brushed aside as unworthy of consideration. The trunk was here in this car, she was sure. This the baggage man and Mr. Wakeham united in declaring quite impossible. “We have turned the blasted car upside down,” said the latter.
“Impossible?” exclaimed Jane, who had been exploring the dark recesses of the car. “Why, here it is, I knew it was here.”
“Hurrah,” cried Larry, “we have got it anyway.”
Mr. Wakeham and the baggage man went to work to extricate the trunk from the lowest tier of boxes. They were wise enough to attempt no excuse or explanation, and in Jane's presence they felt cribbed, cabined and confined in the use of such vocabulary as they were wont to consider appropriate to the circumstances, and in which they prided themselves as being adequately expert. A small triumphal procession convoyed the trunk to the motor, Jane leading as was fitting, Larry and Mr. Wakeham forming the rear guard. The main body consisted of the porter, together with the baggage man, who, under a flagellating sense of his incompetence, was so moved from his wonted attitude of haughty indifference as to the fate of a piece of baggage committed to his care when once he had contemptuously hurled it forth from the open door of his car as to personally aid in conducting by the unusual and humiliating process of actually handling this particular bit of baggage down a steep and gravelly bank and over a wire fence and into a motor car.