Bart Stirling's Road to Success Part 26

"You seem to be well-posted."

"I ought to be," answered Bart--"I am the express agent at Pleasantville."

"What!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man incredulously.

"Yes," nodded Bart, smiling. "Won't you help me get this trunk to the platform?"

The station agent came outside and lent a hand as suggested, but he remarked:

"The express doesn't stop here."

"Flag it."

"My orders--"

"Won't interfere, in this case," insisted Bart. "That trunk has got two thousand dollars worth of stuff in it, and was stolen. I recovered it, the thieves are after me, and it has got to go to Cedar Lake on Number 18."

"Well! well! well!" muttered the station agent in a daze, but hastening to place the stop signal.

Bart went inside and unceremoniously approached the office desk. He wrote on a slip of paper, placed it in his pocket, s.h.i.+fted the trunk to the head end of the platform, and stationed himself beside it.

"Is all that you're telling me true?" propounded the bewildered station agent, sidling up to Bart's side.

"Every word of it."

"Where did you get the hand car?"

"I found it. Oh, by the way! I wish you would explain to me about that railroad; what is it, what excuse has it got for existing?"

"Oh, that?" said the station agent "It's the old quarry spur. A company built it five years ago with grand plans for s.h.i.+pping mottled tiling slate all over the country. Their money gave out and the scheme was never put through."

"And the hand car?"

"There's four men who live here who got the privilege of digging out slate for a big plumbers' supply house in the city. They go to the quarry and back on the hand car daily. Did they loan it to you?"

"No," said Bart, "I was in a hurry, and had to borrow it without permission."

"They'll have a fine walk back here in this storm!"

"I was going to suggest," said Bart, taking half a dollar from his pocket, "that you might hire some boy to run the hand car back to the quarry."

"I can do that," answered the station agent.

Number 18 came sailing down the rails. As she slowed up, everyone on duty from the fireman to the brakeman was on the lookout for the cause of the unusual stop.

The conductor jumped off and ran up to the station agent, and while the latter was busy explaining the situation Bart hammered on the door of the express car.

"Why it's Stirling!" cried old Ben Travers, the veteran express messenger, sliding back the door.

"You're right, Mr. Travers," a.s.sented Bart. "Here's a special and urgent. Get it aboard before the conductor comes up and jumps all over me for stopping the train."

Travers popped down in a lively fas.h.i.+on. They hoisted the trunk together and sent it spinning into the car.

"Cedar Lake, make a sure delivery, Mr. Travers," directed Bart. "Here, put your manifesto on that receipt, will you?" and Bart drew the slip of paper he had written on in the depot from his pocket.

The conductor, a pompous, self-contained old fellow, started towards Bart to haul him over the coals, but Bart wisely walked farther down the platform, the conductor gave the go-ahead signal and shook his fist sternly at Bart, while the latter with a gay, relieved laugh waved him back a cheery, courteous good-by.

Bart told the station agent a very little about the history of the trunk. He left a dollar to pay for the broken hand car lock. He was in high spirits as he caught the east bound train. The whistles were blowing for a quarter of six as he reached Pleasantville and leaped from the engine, where a friendly engineer had given him a free ride, and in three minutes was at the door of the little express office.

Animated voices reached him from the inside. Bart peered beyond the threshold.

McCarthy, the night watchman, sat asleep in a chair in a corner. Darry Haven was at the desk, a spruce, solemn-faced young man beside him.

"I'm here, Darry," announced Bart.

Darry turned with a joyful face. It fell as he glanced beyond his young employer to the empty platform.

"No trunk!" he murmured in a low, disappointed tone.

"Too heavy to carry around, you see!" smiled Bart lightly. "Who is this gentleman? Oh, I see--good afternoon, Mr. Stuart."

"Afternoon," crisply answered the stranger.

He was a young limb of the law, employed since the previous year in the office of Judge Monroe, the princ.i.p.al attorney of Pleasantville.

Stuart was a b.u.t.t for even the well-meaning boys of the town. He was only nineteen, but he affected the dignity of a sage of sixty, seeming to have the idea that nothing but a severe and forbidding manner could represent the high and lofty calling he had condescended to follow.

"Ah," he observed, turning upon Bart and critically adjusting a single eyegla.s.s, "is this the express agent?"

"That's me," a.s.sented Bart bluntly.

"I represent Monroe, Purcell & Abernethy, Attorneys," grandly announced Stuart. "We are employed by Mrs. Harrington to prosecute an inquiry as to a missing trunk."

Darry looked very serious, Bart smiled serenely in the face of his imperturbable visitor.

"What is there to prosecute, Mr. Stuart?" he inquired.

"We have come to demand certified copies of all entries and receipts of this office covering the trunk in question," announced the young sprig of the law.

"Well?" interrogated Bart.

"Your employee--a.s.sistant? here, declined to act without your authority."

"Quite right. I give it, though. Darry, make out transcripts of the records. That is all clear and regular."

Bart turned on his heel, ran his eye over the office books, and bored young Mr. Stuart terribly by paying no further attention to him.

The latter stood watching the industrious Darry with owl-like solemnity.