Then John Brisbane showed him the Post Office, and after bidding him good-bye and good luck, went off.
Ransom found that he had barely time to cash his money orders, and feared that when he got on the end of the long line in the crowded waiting-room the window would be closed before he got to it.
One by one the people stepped up to the narrow window and held what seemed to be long conversations with the official behind the glass. First it was a woman with a baby, which had to be held by some one else while the mother signed her name, the baby meanwhile objecting vigorously; then a man with a lot of bundles, which he was constantly dropping and as often picking up, delayed the line; and then one thing and another until Ransom, who watched the hands of the big clock approach nearer and nearer four o’clock, fingered his money orders nervously and grew nearly frantic with apprehension.
At last he reached the window and got his money just in time. He put it in the inside pocket of his coat and buttoned it up, but pulled it open again when he went over to the stamp window to buy stamps for the crew and for himself. The crowd was unaccountably thick, and he wondered at it, as a man was pushed against him so heavily that he grunted. The stamps once bought, he rushed out to buy some greatly needed supplies for the ship’s larder.
“It’s lucky I got that money,” he said to himself, as he opened the door of a grocery shop. “We would have about starved to death if it had not come.”
“How much is it?” Ken asked of the grocery man when the goods had been selected.
“Three forty-eight,” was the reply.
Ransom went into his vest pocket, where he usually carried a small amount of money for everyday purposes, and pulled up two quarters, a nickel and two pennies.
“Fifty-seven cents,” he laughed, while the grocery man watched him narrowly.
“Well, it is lucky that check came. What we should have done without it, I don’t know.” He reached for his inside pocket as he spoke. “But it did, so it’s all right. How much did you——”