"Papa! Act your age!" his daughter-in-law said under her breath.
"Like they say, a woman's as old as she looks, but a man ain't old till he quits looking," he replied absently.
The redcap grinned. The little señorita, not knowing who was watching her but quite sure someone was, paused to put a dime in a Coke machine. The wheelchair entourage passed her and the old man craned his neck, looking backward, determined not to miss anything. The girl sat down on a bench to drink her Coke. If I were only fifty years younger, the old man thought, I'd buy a Coke, too, and sit down beside her....
"Papa!" his son's wife cried. "You'll fall out of your chair! Why do you always have to embarrass me like this?" But the insistent voice could not interrupt the old man's pleasant daydream of conquest. He had turned off his hearing aid.
The redcap stopped alongside the third car of the San-Francisco-bound streamliner and signaled another redcap who was unloading a baggage truck. The other came over to help and two pairs of strong young arms lifted the old man, wheelchair and all, smoothly onto the platform of the car.
His daughter-in-law did not board the train. She stood waving, calling after the old man, "So long, Papa! Have a nice visit with Edna and remember what I told you!"
He waved back automatically, but he hadn't heard a word she said. He didn't turn his hearing aid back on until he had been wheeled inside the car.
Most of the reclining seats were already filled. The redcap pushed the wheelchair the full length of the aisle and parked it in a vacant space beyond the last seat, across from the washroom. He turned it crosswise, so it wouldn't roll when the train started moving, and with its occupant facing the window.
"Turn me around!" the old man commanded. "Like to see who I'm ridin' with. If I want to look out, I always got the opposite window."