"Why didn't you take the seven-o'clock then?"
"We didn't know about it until it was too late. We were getting some breakfast at a restaurant down the street there. We're going to take the nine-forty-six."
"The nine-forty-six is an express to New York, son. What's your name? And what's his?"
"My name's Thayer and his is Byrd. We go to Brimfield Academy."
"Do, eh? Aren't you a long way from home?"
"Yes. You see, we went over to Thacher to the football game and lost the trolley. And then a fellow offered to give us a ride in an automobile as far as this place and we got in and a wheel came off and we had to walk the rest of the way. But we got lost in the woods somewhere and--"
"What sort of a looking fellow was this? The one with the auto, I mean?"
"Oh, he was about twenty years old, with kind of long hair, light-brown, and sort of greyish eyes."
"Tell you his name?"
"No, sir, we didn't ask him. He drives the auto for some liveryman in Thacher, he said."