"Goin" to put "em on here and go through the train in uniform?" laughed the engineer.
"Why not?" Brockway demanded. "I"m not ashamed of the blue denim yet.
Wore it too long."
He donned the craftsman"s uniform. The garments were a trifle short at the extremities, but they more than made up for the lack equatorially.
"How"s that for a lightning change?" he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the din and clangor of the engine. "Just hang on to my coat and hat till I get back, and I"ll swap with you again." And gathering up the handful of tools, he climbed back over the coal and disappeared through the door of the mail car.
V
AT THE MEETING-POINT
Brockway made his way unrecognized through the train, and found the Falstaffian cook awaiting him in the kitchen of the Naught-fifty. Five minutes later, he was hard at work on the disabled stove, quite reckless of soot and grime, and intent only upon making a workmanlike job of the repairs. The narrow compartment was none too well ventilated, and he was soon working in an atmosphere rivalling that of the hot-room in a Turkish bath. Wherefore he wrought arduously, and in due time the leaky joint was made whole.
After turning the water on and satisfying himself of the fact, Brockway crawled out from behind the range and got upon his feet with a sigh of relief. Just then the portway into the waiter"s pantry filled with faces like the arch of a proscenium-box in a theatre. Brockway wheeled quickly at the sound of voices and saw the President, one young woman with eye-gla.s.ses and another without, a clean-faced young man with uncut hair, and--Miss Vennor.
"Ha!" said the President, with the King George Fourth smile and his coldest stare; "we caught you fairly in the midst of it, didn"t we, Mr.
Brockway? Do you still a.s.sert that we shall dine at our own table this evening?"
The effect of Mr. Vennor"s dramatic little surprise was varied and not altogether as he had prefigured. As for the person most deeply concerned, no one was ever less ashamed of a craftsman"s insignia than was Brockway; but when he saw that the President had permitted him to do a service for the sole purpose of making him appear ridiculous, his heart was hot in just proportion to the magnitude of the affront.
As for Gertrude, she could have wept with pity and indignation. This was the "young mechanic" her father had found and used, only to make him a laughing-stock! The light of a sudden purpose flashed in the steady gray eyes, and she spoke quickly, before Brockway could reply to her father"s gibe.
"Why, Mr. Brockway! where did you come from? It really seems that you are fated to be our good angel. Have you actually got it repaired?" The winsome face disappeared from the portway, and before Brockway could open his lips she was standing beside him. "Show me what was the matter with it," she said.
He obeyed, with proper verbal circ.u.mstance, gaining a little self-possession with every added phrase. Gertrude led him on, laughing and chatting and dragging the others into the rescue until Brockway quite forgot that he was supposed to be a laughing-stock for G.o.ds and men.
"I"m very glad to meet you, I"m sure," he said, bowing gravely to the Misses Beaswicke, when Gertrude had actually gone the length of introducing him; "Mr. Fleetwell, I"ve heard of you--and that"s probably more than you can say of me. Mr. Vennor, I think you may safely count upon having your dinner in the Naught-fifty."
"Yes, thanks to you," said Gertrude, quickly. "Have you--will your other engagements let you join us?"
Brockway was of four different minds in as many seconds. Here was a chance to defeat Mr. Vennor at his own game; and love added its word.
But he could not consent to break unwelcome bread, and was about to excuse himself when the President, in answer to an imperative signal flying in Gertrude"s eyes, seconded the invitation.
"Yes, come in and join us, Mr. Brockway; we shall be glad to have you, I"m sure." The stony stare which accompanied the words was anything but hospitable, but the President felt that he had done his whole duty and something over and above.
Brockway hesitated a moment, glanced at Gertrude, and accepted. Then he began to gather up the tools. Gertrude caught up her skirts and stepped into the vestibule to give him room.
"You"ll not disappoint us, will you?" she said, by way of leave-taking.
"You may come as early as you please. I want you to meet Cousin Jeannette."
The portway proscenium-box was empty by this time, and Brockway dropped his tools and spoke his mind.
"Miss Vennor, I know, and you know, that I ought not to come at all. It was awfully good of you to ask me, but----"
"But what?" she said, encouragingly.
"I think you must understand what I want to say and can"t," he went on.
"You saw that I was like to be overtaken by a fit of very foolish self-consciousness, and you were kind enough to come to my rescue. I appreciate it, but I don"t want to take undue advantage of it."
"I"m sure I don"t know what you mean," she laughed. "We shall look for you between six and seven. And you"ll come, because I"m going to run away now, before you have a chance to retract. Good-by--till this evening."
VI
REGARDLESS ORDERS
Ten hours" westing from the Missouri River takes a moderately fast train well into the great grazing region whose name is Length and Breadth, and whose horizon is like that of the sea. Since leaving Antelope Springs, however, the "Flying Kestrel" had been lagging a little. For this cause, the supper station was still more than an hour away when Brockway deserted his ancients and invalids and crossed the platforms to the rear door of the private car.
The admission that he dreaded the ordeal is not to be set down to his discredit. His life had been an arduous struggle, for an education and the necessities first, and for advancement afterward. In such a conflict, utility speedily becomes the watchword, and if the pa.s.senger agent were less of a workaday drudge than his fellows, he was modestly unaware of the fact.
In the course of the afternoon all the reasons why he should manage to get himself left behind at some convenient station were given a hearing, but love finally triumphed, and half-past six o"clock found him at the door of the Naught-fifty. Fortunately for his introduction, the occupants of the sitting-room were well scattered; and Gertrude came forward at once to welcome him.
"Thank you for coming," she said, putting her hand in his with the cordiality of an old friend; "I was afraid you might forget us, after all. Let me introduce you to my cousin, Mrs. Dunham; Cousin Jeannette, this is Mr. Brockway."
Brockway bent low in the direction of an elderly lady with a motherly face; bowed to the Misses Beaswicke and to Fleetwell, and acknowledged the President"s nod.
"I"m only too happy to be permitted to come," he said to Gertrude, drawing up a chair to make a group of three with the chaperon. "The social side of a business man"s life is so nearly a minus quant.i.ty that your thoughtfulness takes rank as an act of Christian charity."
Gertrude laughed softly. "Tell me how a business man finds time to acquire the art of turning compliments," she said; but Mrs. Dunham came to his rescue.
"I suppose your occupation keeps you away from home a great deal, doesn"t it?" she asked.
"It certainly would if I had a home," Brockway replied.
"Do you have to travel all the time?"
"Rather more than nine-tenths of it, I should say."
"How dreadfully tiresome it must become! Of course, when one is seeing things for the first time it is very interesting; but I should imagine the car-window point of view would become hackneyed in a very little while."
"It does; and it is pathetically unsatisfying if one care for anything more than a glimpse of things. I have gone up and down in my district for four years, and yet I know nothing of the country or the people outside of a narrow ribbon here and there with a railway line in the centre."
"That is a good thought," Gertrude said. "I have often boasted of having seen the West, but I believe I have only threaded it back and forth a few times."
"That is all any of us do," Brockway a.s.serted. "Our knowledge of the people outside of the railway towns is very limited. I once made a horseback trip through the back counties of East Tennessee, and it was a revelation to me. I never understood until then the truth of the a.s.sertion that people who live within sight of a railway all have the "railway diathesis"."
"Meaning that they lose in originality what they gain in sophistication?" said Gertrude.
"Just that. They become a part of the moving world; and as the railway civilizing process is much the same the country over, they lose their ident.i.ty as sectional types."
Mrs. Dunham leaned back in her chair and began to make mental notes with queries after them. Mr. Vennor had given her to understand that they were to have a _rara avis_, served underdone, for dinner; and, in the kindness of her heart, she had determined to see that the "young artisan," as her cousin had called him, was not led on to his own undoing. Now, however, she began to suspect that some one had made a mistake. This young man seemed to be abundantly able to fight his own battles.