“Will there be a piano in the parlor car?” Sunny Boy wanted to know next.
Mrs. Horton laughed merrily.
“A parlor car is like the rest of the cars in a train, except that the seats are more comfortable,” she explained. “Anyway, we have to go in an ordinary coach, because Daddy and I couldn’t get a single parlor car seat yesterday. They had all been taken. I don’t see what can have happened to Daddy!”
Just then Mr. Horton came up to them. There was a baggage man with him and they both looked rather excited.
“I guess you’ll have to come over to the baggage room, Olive,” said Mr. Horton in a low voice, “and see what you can do about straightening out this mess. They want to know what you’ve packed in the trunk.”
Sunny Boy clung tightly to Mother’s hand while they walked over to a low, broad window on one side of the station wall. This opened into the baggage room, and a perfect ocean of trunks was being tossed about in there. The pink came into Mother’s cheeks as she saw the crowd gathered about the window.
“You see, Ma’am,” said the big, tall man at the window in a gruff voice that was somehow kind and friendly, too, “it’s like this—we figure out something blew up in that trunk of yours about ten o’clock last night, and naturally we want to know something about it. In fact, we can’t check the trunk for you until we do. A dozen men heard it, and—”
“But I don’t understand,” protested Mrs. Horton. “I packed nothing that could possibly blow up, as you say. My sister and I put everything in with our own hands. I even have a list. I can show you that—” she fumbled in her velvet handbag with fingers that trembled.
“Probably an infernal machine,” declared a shrill voice in the crowd that was now growing too large for comfort. “With the country in the unsettled state it is now, you can look for anything.”
“What’s a ’fernal ’chine?” asked Sunny Boy boldly.