"I guess so; to oblige me. He'd lose only a day; and he'd make thirty-odd friends for the C. & U., don't you see."
"I must confess that I don't see, from a purely business point of view," was the rejoinder. "We are all ticketed out and back, and we can't change our route if we want to."
Brockway laughed. "The business of passenger soliciting is far-reaching. Some of you--perhaps most of you--will go again next year; and if the general agent of the C. & U. is particularly kind and obliging, you may remember his line."
"Dear me--why, of course! You say your friend is on the train?"
"Very well; you go and see him, and I'll help you out by breaking the news to the thirty-odd."
Brockway struggled into his coat and shook hands with the friendly one. "Mr. Somers, you're my good angel. You've undertaken a thankless task, though."
The womanish face under the band of the skull-cap broke into a smile which was not altogether angelic. "I shall get my pay as I go along; our friend with the bad case of ticket dementia will be carrying the entire responsibility for your absence before I get through."
"Good! pile it on thick," said Brockway, chuckling. "Make 'em understand that I'd give all my old shoes to go--that I'm so angry with Jordan for spoiling my day's pleasure that I can't see straight."
"I'll do it," the little man agreed. "Take a cigar to smoke after breakfast"--and the gray duster and velvet skull-cap disappeared forthwith around the angle in the vestibule.
Not until he was ready to seek Burton did the passenger agent recollect that the Naught-fifty was between the Tadmor and the Ariadne, and that it would be the part of prudence to go around rather than through the President's car. When he did remember it he stepped out into the vestibule of the Tadmor to get a breath of fresh air while he waited for the train to come to a station. Mrs. Dunham was on the Naught-fifty's rear platform, and she nodded, smiled, and beckoned him to come across.
"I'm glad to know that somebody else besides a curious old woman cares enough for this grand scenery to get up early in the morning," she said, pleasantly.
"You mustn't make me ashamed," Brockway rejoined. "I'm afraid I should have been sound asleep this minute if I hadn't been routed out by one of my people."