"Well, it's an abominable outrage!" she began. She added: "It's a burning shame! They'll never get over it in the world; and when it comes lagging along after everything's over, she won't care a pin for it! How did it happen?"
Gaites mutely referred her, with a shrug, to the man in the silk cap, and he again hazarded his dreamy conjecture.
"Well, it doesn't matter!" she said, with a bitterness that was a great comfort to Gaites. "What are you going to do about it?" she asked him.
"I don't know what can be done about it," he answered, referring himself to the man in the silk cap.
The man said, "No freight out, now, till Monday."
Mrs. Maze burst forth again: "If I had the least confidence in the world in any human express company, I would send it by express and pay the expressage myself."
"Oh, I couldn't let you do that, Mrs. Maze," Gaites protested. "Besides, I don't suppose they'd allow us to take it out of the freight, here, unless we had the bill of lading."
"Well," cried Mrs. Maze, passionately, "I can't bear to think of that child's suspense. It's perfectly heart-sickening. Why shouldn't they telegraph? They ought to telegraph! If they let things go wandering round the earth at this rate, the least they can do is to telegraph and relieve people's minds. We'll go and make the station-master telegraph!"
But even when the station-master was found, and made to understand the case, and to feel its hardship, he had his scruples. "I don't think I've got any right to do that," he said.
"Of coarse I'll pay for the telegram," Mrs. Maze interpolated.