“The train leaves at eleven-thirty,” she mused. “Well, wherever it might have been going, it’s gone.” She glanced at the clock which read twelve-fifteen.
And then, of a sudden, all thought of the other girl and her affairs was blotted out by a resolve she had made that very morning. This was Friday. Day after to-morrow was Christmas. She wanted a surprise on Christmas. She had started to tell Lucile about it that morning, but while just in the middle of the story the elevator had reached the Book Department and Lucile had hurried away. Soon after came the strange experience of meeting her double and Florence had quite forgotten all about it until this very minute.
“Have to provide my own surprise,” she said to herself, while thinking it through. “But how am I to surprise myself?”
This had taken a great deal of thinking, but in the end she hit upon the very thing. Her old travelling bag had gone completely to pieces on her last trip. Her father had sent her fifteen dollars for the purchase of a new one. She had the money still. She would buy a travelling bag with a surprise in it.
Only a few days before, a friend had told her how this might be done. Every great hotel has in its store room a great deal of baggage which no one claims; such as hat boxes, trunks, bags and bundles. Someone leaves his baggage as security for a bill. He does not return. Someone leaves his trunk in storage. He too disappears. Someone dies. In time all this baggage is sold at an auctioneer’s place to the highest bidders. They have all been sealed when placed in the store room, and here they are, trunks, bundles and bags, all to be sold with “contents if any.”
“With contents if any.” Florence had read that sentence over many times as she finished scanning the notice of an auction that was to be held that very afternoon and night.
“With contents if any,” that was where her surprise was to come in. She would pick out a good bag that had a woman’s name on it, or one that at least looked as if a woman had owned it, and she would bid it in. Then the bag would be hers, and the “contents if any.” She thrilled at the thought. Her friend had told of diamond rings, of gold watches, of a string of pearls, of silks and satins and silver jewel boxes that had come from these mysterious sealed bags and trunks.
“Of course,” Florence assured herself, “there won’t be anything like that in my bag, but anyway there’ll be a surprise. What fun it will be, on my birthday, to turn the key to the bag and to peep inside.
“I know the afternoon is going to drag terribly. I do wish I could go now,” she sighed, “but I can’t. I do hope they don’t sell all the nice bags before I get there.”
With this she rose from the table, paid her check and went back to her elevator, still wondering about her mysterious double and still dreaming of her birthday surprise.