Stephen stepped quickly into the car, pulled back the curtain of the nearest section, and stepping on the lower berth, caught hold of the curtain bar, and with one pull swung himself up. In the process, he inadvertently stepped on the fat man in the lower berth. Stephen knew that he was fat, because he felt that way. The man swore sleepily, and twitched the curtain back into place.
“I think that I won’t put my boots out to be cleaned to-night,” said Loring to himself. “It would be tactless.” Then he pulled the blankets up over him, rolled over close to the far side of the berth, and fell asleep, lulled by the hum of the car wheels, pounding southward fifty miles an hour.
Tired out by his vigil of the night before, Stephen slept until it was late. He awoke with a start to find that it was broad daylight. Sleepily he tried to think where he was. His eye fell on the dome of polished mahogany above him, upon the swaying green curtain, and the swinging bellrope. Then he recalled the situation. For a few moments he lay back, blissfully comfortable. His weary muscles were grateful for the rest. Then he roused himself, and peered cautiously out from between the curtains. While he was looking up and down the dusty stretch of carpet in the aisle, the colored porter rapped hard on the woodwork of the lower berth, and proceeded to awake the occupant.
“Last call for breakfast, number twelve, last call; half-past nine, sir, half-past nine.”
Stephen curbed a childlike desire to reach over and pull the kinky hair of the darky.
“I am sure that he would think that I was a ghost,” he laughed to himself.
He could hear the man below him turn over heavily, then grunt, and begin to dress.
“I think I also had better arise,” reflected Loring. He watched the porter until the latter was at the far end of the car, then dropping his feet over the edge of the berth he slid out onto the swaying floor, almost into the arms of the amazed Pullman conductor, who at that instant had entered the car.
“Where did you get on?” gasped the brass-buttoned official. “I didn’t know that there was an ‘upper’ taken in this car.”
“At Los Andes,” answered Stephen, “I was rather tired, so I thought I would not bother you at the time.”