"Oh, no, it is not, Aunty," said the young girl with a laugh, "they have had no breakfast."
"Give them food, my dear, if you please, but I beg you not to bring them into this car. Look how dirty they are! Why, they might give us all some terrible disease!"
But Miss Eleanor had closed her ears to the plump lady's expostulations, and was arranging with a surly servant for something to eat for the children. And just then the question of their invasion of the car was settled by the train's starting. I undertook to run forward alongside the car, but seeing an open ravine ahead spanned by a trestle, and that the train was quickening its speed, I caught Dixie and threw him up on the rear platform, and then swung myself up after him. The rear door was still unlocked, so I opened it to pass through the car. Just inside, the elderly lady was sitting back in an arm-chair with a novel in her lap, though she was engaged at the moment in softly polishing her nails. She stopped long enough to raise her jewelled lorgnette, and take a shot at me through it:
"Are you the brakeman?" she called.
"No, Madame," I said grimly, thinking, "Well, I must have a brakeman's air to-day."
"Oh! Will you ring that bell?"
"Certainly." I rang and, passing on, was met by the porter coming to answer the bell.
"This is a private car," he said shortly, blocking my way.
"I know it." I looked him in the eye.
"You can't go th'oo this car."