He saw now that he had misjudged the reporters; even these harpies gave him something to envy. If one was going to feel indifferent at a time like this it would be well to feel at least an honest professional indifference.... But that was not all. Had not this young man admitted that the mere sight of such suffering would have stirred him to the depths if he did not have his business to think of, and that without being personally concerned in the accident? While he himself, with every reason to suffer every anxiety in this crucial moment, was quite the calmest person in the room, able to lecture a hysterical mother on the doctrine of chances! Was he dead to all human feeling?
There was a moment of calm in the room, which was broken by the entrance of a tall blonde young man—a college undergraduate, to all appearances.
"Can any of you tell me if Car 1058 was on the Maine Special?" he asked the reporters.
No one had heard of Car 1058. Research among the bulletins failed to reveal any mention of it.
"What's the name of the person you're interested in?" asked some one. "We might be able to tell you something."
"Oh, it wasn't any person," the young man explained; "it was my dog I was looking for. I've found he was shipped on Car 1058. A water spaniel, he was. I don't suppose you've heard anything?"
A moment of silence followed this announcement, and then one of the reporters began to laugh. There was nothing funny about it, of course, except the contrast. They all knew it was by the merest accident that Fannie Schmidt's contusions had been flashed over the wires rather than the fate of the water spaniel.
The youth flushed to the roots of his yellow hair.
"Oh, yes, it's very funny, of course," he said, and stalked out of the room. But there shone another light in his eyes than the gleam of anger.
"Say, there's copy in that," observed one reporter, and straightway they were all busy writing.