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I was tempted at first to believe that, in the concert room, when one of his favorite pieces was being played, and his hand rose and fell in exact accord with the conductor's baton, or when, with his head in the air and his mouth half open, he thumped his knee at the beginning of each bar, he was absorbed in the music to the exclusion of all his worries, perplexities, and suffering.
He retired, chop-fallen and ashamed, and the day following, two conductor's wives and the sister of a brakeman, armed respectively with a brace of quail, a bouquet of assorted sweet peas and half a dozen oranges, came, deposited their offerings, were duly thanked and dismissed.
The conductor's interview with the president of the road was apparently satisfactory, for old Number Eighty-six is trying to lead a better life under the guidance of John Saggart. "I'm bothered about that young fellow," said Mellish early one morning, to the professional gambler, Pony Rowell. "Why?" "He comes here night after night, and he loses more than he can afford, I imagine.
He ceased speaking abruptly, jammed the brake down with his heel in response to the conductor's bell, and drew the sweating horses up short to permit the ingress of fresh passengers. This accomplished, the omnibus lumbered onwards while Dominic Iglesias fell into further meditation.
About noon, Father Pat, coming slowly up the three flights, heard a series of slam bangings coming from the direction of the Barber flat also, sharp toot-toots, and heavy chugs. And when the priest opened the hall door and peeped in, a conductor's bell was ding-dinging, while the empty wood box was careening madly in the wake of the wheel chair. "Ha-ha-a! Johnnie lad!" he hailed.
From behind them came the conductor's voice again, airing his English: "Any more bags inside there, Colonel?" "Get out quick, Jeremy, and make a fuss about the Colonel coming!" ordered Grim. Jeremy suddenly became the arch-efficient servitor, establishing importance for his chief, and never a newly made millionaire or modern demagog had such skillful advertisement.
We could hear the dash of the waves far below, as our conductor's voice sounded out clear and peremptory, uttering the timely reminder; we could hear the words of two French commis-voyageurs, coming from the ditch-sunk diligence, making some facetious remark, one to the other, about their present adventure being very much like some of Alexandre Dumas's Impressions de Voyage; we could hear the cries and calls of the men refastening the horses, and preparing to push anew at the wheels; we could distinguish a domestic party dismounting from the back portion of the other diligence, consisting of a father and mother with their baby and the bonne; we could see the little white cap covered up carefully with a handkerchief by the young mother, while the father held an umbrella over their heads, and conducted them to the counterpart portion of our diligence, where the family took refuge during the fresh attempts to drag theirs forth.
I answered at random and longed for the meal to end until I remembered my lecture. Then I wished that dinner might go on indefinitely like the tea party of the Mad Hatter. "The rule for conductor's dinner speech is, rise with the raisins! Hope you won't find your lecture too hard a nut to crack. Yours sympathetically, Corkran. Bang on the table to make them stop gabbling. Or shall I do it for you?
Of the two-fifty, you extract a dollar, feeling that the Senior Holden is a cheapskate. You slip the other buck and a half into an envelope, ready for the conductor's hand. He'll think Holden Senior is more of a cheapskate, and by the time he extracts his cut, the dining car steward will know that Holden Senior is a cheapskate. But
Then the pair set out for the theatre. Schmucke could not leave his friend in the condition to which he had been brought by the Camusots mistresses and servants. He knew Pons so well; he feared lest some cruel, sad thought should seize on him at his conductor's desk, and undo all the good done by his welcome home to the nest.
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