It stumped him. He only stared.
Mis' Sykes rolled her eyes, and she pressed him. "Where d'you live?"
That stumped him too. He only stared on.
"What's your papa's name?"
That was a worse poser. So was everything else we asked him. Pretty soon he begun to cry, and that was a language we could all understand. But when we ask' him, frantic, what it was he wanted, he said words that sounded like soup with the alphabet stirred in.
"Heavens!" says Mis' Sykes. "He ain't English."
And that's what we all concluded. He wore what we'd never seen, he spoke what we couldn't speak, he come from nobody knew where.
But while we were a-staring at each other, the Switzerland maid come a-racing back. Seems she'd been up to the depot, a block away, and Copper, the baggageman, had noticed a queer-looking kid on the platform when some folks got off Number 16 that had gone through west an hour or so back. Copper thought the kid was with them, but he didn't notice it special. Where the folks went to, nobody knew.
"Down on the Flats somewhere, that's where its folks went," says Mis' Sykes. "Sure to. Well, then, they'll be looking for it. We must get it in the papers."