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But Crene is not to be asserted into yielding one inch, and insists that the trunk went to Vermont and not to New York, and is thoroughly unmanageable. Then the baggage-master, in anguish of soul, trots out his subordinates, one after another, "Is this the man that wheeled the trunk away? Is this? Is this?"
"Keep hold of that," whispered Crene, and a yoke of oxen could not have drawn it from me. "You are sure you had it marked for Fontdale," says Mr. Baggage-master. I hold the impracticable check before his eyes in silence. "Yes, well, it must have gone on to Albany." "But it went away on that track," says Crene. "Couldn't have gone on that track.
Of course there was a formidable hitch in the programme. A court of justice was improvised on the car-steps. I was the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and examining-counsel. The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the little insurmountable check whose brazen lips could speak no lie.
"It was lost here last night," continues Crene, in a soliloquizing undertone, pushing investigating glances beneath the sofas. "I do' know nothin' about it. I 'a'n't took it"; and the Gnome tosses her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when she was a-writin' of her letter, and when she went out ther' wa'n't nothin' left on the table but a hangkerchuf, and that wa'n't hern.
"No," whispers Crene; "as long as you have your check, you as good as have your trunk; but when you give that up, you have nothing. Keep that till you see your trunk." My clutch re-tightens. "At any rate, you can wait till the next train, and see if it doesn't come back. You'll get to your journey's end just as soon." "Shall I? Well, I will," compliant as usual.
It is a dismal day, and Crene, to comfort me, puts into my hands two books as companions by the way. They are Coventry Patmore's "Angel in the House," "The Espousals and the Betrothal." I do not approve of reading in the cars; but without is a dense, white, unvarying fog, and within my heart it is not clear sunshine. So I turn to my books. Did any one ever read them before?
Of course there was a formidable hitch in the programme. A court of justice was improvised on the car-steps. I was the plaintiff, Crene chief evidence, baggage-master both defendant and examining-counsel. The case did not admit of a doubt. There was the little insurmountable check, whose brazen lips could speak no lie.
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