“It ought to be enough,” said Bob. “How big’s this Sioux City place, anyway? Seems to me they ought to have been able to find the Goupil Machinery Company, even if they didn’t have the street address.”
“Well,” said Miss Comfort, “I’m relieved to get it back. I thought it was strange that Mr. Goupil didn’t take any notice of it. Now I know it was because he never received it. You see.”
“Tell you what we might do,” offered Laurie. “We might find out Mr. Goupil’s address from the lawyers who wrote you about it and then you could write to him again, ma’am.”
“Oh I shouldn’t care to do that,” replied Miss Comfort. “I’m settled so nicely here now, you see, Laurie. In a great many ways it is better for me than my other home was. There were so many rooms there to keep clean, and then, in winter, there were the sidewalks to be looked after, and the pipes would freeze now and then. No, I think everything has turned out quite for the best, just as it generally does, my dears.”
“Just the same,” quoth Laurie as they returned up the hill past the telegraph office, “I’m going in there to-morrow and find out what happened to that message we sent.”
“That’s right,” assented Bob. “They ought to give us our money back, anyway!”
They learned the fate of the message without difficulty the following morning, although they had to make two calls at the office. On the second occasion the manager displayed a telegram from Sioux City. Laurie’s message had been delivered to A. T. Gompers, Globe Farm Machinery Company, Sioux City. The date and even the time of day were supplied. At first the manager appeared to consider Laurie and Ned over-particular, but finally acknowledged that perhaps a mistake had been made. If, he said, the sender cared to put in a claim the company would take up the matter and make a thorough investigation, and if it found there really had been an error in delivery the price of the telegram would be refunded. But Laurie shook his head.
“We’re a short-lived family,” he explained. “Few of us Turners live to be over eighty, and so I guess there wouldn’t be time. Thank you just as much.”
“What it amounts to,” said Ned, as they hurried back to a recitation, “is that Miss Comfort got the fellow’s name wrong somehow. Or maybe his initials. Or maybe the name of his company.”