SOME TALK WITH COLONEL WIMPLETON.
I was very intent upon explaining to Miss Grace Toppleton the mysteries
of the dummy engine, and I was not pleased to have the agreeable
interview broken off. I was vexed, annoyed, and disconcerted. The
beautiful young lady looked at me, and I thought I could see the
indications of sympathy upon her face.
“If you will excuse me a moment, Miss Toppleton, I will show you the
engine,” I said to her, with all the politeness of which my nature was
capable.
“I guess not,” added Captain Synders, with a coarse grin, as though he
had evil intentions in regard to me.
“If you will let me, Mr. Wolf, I want to ride back in the engine-room,
and see the machinery work,” replied she, in her silvery tones.
“I guess not,” repeated Captain Synders; and I turned my attention from
her to him.
I could not conceive why Colonel Wimpleton and his odious associate had
chosen to come down upon me at Spangleport, rather than Middleport,
unless it was because their appearance would make less excitement.
The boat in which they had come lay at the wharf, and they must have
started long before the dummy left Middleport. Possibly they expected
to interrupt the trips of the engine, and have it left five miles from
its headquarters without an engineer.
Colonel Wimpleton had with him Captain Synders, the constable. It had
not yet occurred to me that I should actually be arrested, and held
to answer for the destruction of the honest skipper’s canal boat,
though the appearance of the officer had suggested the idea to me.
They could not arrest me without including Waddie in the warrant, for
he had confessed his agency in the mischief. I did not know of any way
by which I could be punished without involving the scion of the great
house on the other side.
“What do you wish with me?” I asked, in a very ill-natured tone; for
I beg to remind the reader that I am human, and that Miss Toppleton
occupied the engine-room of the car.
Captain Synders glanced at the colonel, as though he expected him to do
the talking, and that distinguished gentleman looked down upon me with
unutterable severity. The honest skipper did not appear to have much
sympathy with his companions, and looked very pleasant for a man who
had experienced so heavy a loss as that of his canal boat.
“Wolf!” said the colonel, in stern and lofty accents.
“Sir!” I replied, with a dignity becoming the engineer of the Lake
Shore Railroad.
“We have been looking for you,” he added, glancing at the constable, as
if to direct my attention to him.
“You have been lucky enough to find me, sir. I wish to say, sir, that
the car starts for Middleport at half-past twelve, and therefore I have
only ten minutes to spare,” I replied, consulting Higgins’s gold watch,
the appearance of which, I think, produced a sensation in the minds of
my visitors.
“Humph! I think you will wait my pleasure.”
“That will depend somewhat upon the length of time your pleasure
demands my presence. Will you please to tell me what you want of me?”
“Where is your father, Wolf?”
“At Middleport, sir.”
“What is he doing there?”
“He is at work, sir.”
Colonel Wimpleton looked as though he wanted to swear; for I am sorry
to say this influential man sometimes indulged in the wicked habit of
using profane language. It did not seem quite proper that the menial,
whom he had discharged as a punishment, should find work so soon.
“What is he doing?” demanded the magnate of Centreport, biting his lips
to conceal his vexation.
“You were so kind as to make an opening for him, sir, by hiring away
Major Toppleton’s engineer, and my father has taken his place, at the
same wages--eighty dollars a month--as you pay your new engineer.”
The great man stamped his foot with rage, and uttered an expression
with which I cannot soil my paper. As wicked, tyrannical, overbearing
men often do, he had overreached himself in his anxiety to strike my
father. If it was unchristian for me to rejoice in his discomfiture, I
could not help it, and I did so most heartily.
“I have been to see him about your conduct,” continued the colonel,
when his wrath would let him speak again. “I want to know what he is
going to do about paying his share of the loss of the canal boat which
you and Waddie blew up?”
“I can speak for him, sir, if that is all you want. He is not going to
pay the first cent of it,” I replied.
“Here is the captain of the boat, and he wants to know what you are
going to do about it,” added the colonel, trying to enjoy the confusion
which he thought I ought to feel in view of such a demand.
“Yes, I want to know who is going to pay for the mischief,” said the
honest skipper; but as he already knew, he did not put much heart into
the words, and actually chuckled as he uttered them.
“Captain,” I continued, turning to the master of the canal boat, “I say
to you, as I have said to others, that I had nothing whatever to do
with blowing up your boat, and I did not know anything about it till
the explosion took place. That is all I have to say.”
“I don’t know anything about it,” replied the skipper.
“I do,” interposed the colonel. “He has confessed that he had hold of
the string when the boat blew up.”
I took the trouble to explain to the honest skipper that Waddie had
asked me to pull in his kite line; that I had picked it up, but,
fearing some trick, had done nothing with it; and that Waddie had
pulled the string himself.
“All aboard for Middleport!” shouted Higgins, as moderately this time
as a gentlemanly conductor should speak.
“My time is nearly up, sir,” I added to the colonel. “If you have any
further business with me, please to state it as quickly as possible.”
“You must go over to Centreport with me, and arrange this business,”
replied the magnate, gruffly.
“No, sir; I cannot do that.”
“Then Captain Synders must arrest you.”
“Very well, sir; let him do so. I am willing to go to jail and stand
trial on the blowing up. Have you made a complaint against me?” I asked
of the honest skipper.
He was too candid to tell a lie, and he made me no answer.
“Have you a warrant for my arrest?” I demanded of Captain Synders.
“I can take you without a warrant,” growled the constable.
“Do so, then. If you wish to arrest me, I will submit.”
My friends may think I was putting a very bold face upon the matter,
but I candidly admit that I should have been glad to have the charge
against me investigated; though I was very certain no steps would be
taken in that direction. It is possible Colonel Wimpleton believed that
I had been concerned with his hopeful in the blowing up of the canal
boat; yet the guilt of his son was settled, and, if convicted, some
stupid judge might sentence us both to the penitentiary, for the case
would have to go to the shire town of the county, out of the reach of
the great man’s influence, for trial.
My father had told me that, at the interview with the colonel in the
night, the latter had threatened him with prosecution for abusing his
son; but when my father suggested that Waddie had broken into his house
in the night time, it was plain enough that the young gentleman was
liable to a turn in the state prison. Waddie’s crimes and mistakes
continually stood in the way of his taking his revenge. I considered
myself fully protected in the same manner.
“Captain Synders, if you are going to arrest me, please to do it at
once,” I added, as the lady passengers began to get into the car, and
some of the gentlemen came up to the spot where I stood.
“What’s the row?” asked Higgins.
“These gentlemen from the other side talk of taking me up for the
mischief to that canal boat. If they do so, Higgins, I want you to go
to my father, and tell him about it. If I mistake not, Waddie Wimpleton
will be arrested before night for breaking into our house.”
“I’ll do it!” exclaimed the enthusiastic conductor.
“Arrest Waddie!” ejaculated the colonel, gnashing his teeth with rage.
It was mortifying to the great man to find that he had come to the end
of his rope; that even his power to annoy and persecute his inferiors
had a limit.
“All aboard!” repeated Higgins.
“If you are going to arrest me, Captain Synders, now is your time,” I
added.
The people who had gathered around us began to laugh and enjoy the
scene, and, being mostly Middleporters, they had no particular sympathy
for the colonel.
“Wolf, we shall meet again,” said the great man, sullenly, as he turned
upon his heel, and, followed by his companions, walked rapidly down to
the wharf, where his boat lay.
Even while I knew his power, and felt that he could annoy our family,
and perhaps ruin us, I was quite ready to meet him again. Waddie’s
indiscretions stood between me and his wrath for the present, but his
time might come. I leaped into the engine-room of the dummy, where Miss
Toppleton had stood listening to our conversation.
“Mr. Wolf, I think you are real smart,” said she, with a sweet smile of
approbation.
“I thank you, Miss Toppleton, for your good opinion. Colonel Wimpleton
is very hard upon me just now.”
“I heard father tell about it. I think that Colonel Wimpleton is a real
wicked man; and I only wonder that he and father were good friends for
so many years.”
“I am all ready to start now,” I added. “I wish I had better
accommodations for you.”
“Oh, this is very nice!” exclaimed she.
I opened the valve, and let on the steam.
“What did you do then?” she asked, pointing to the handle of the valve.
“I let on the steam;” and then I gave her a full description of the
engine, which was hardly finished when we came in sight of Middleport.
I found it a delightful task to expatiate on my favorite theme to such
a beautiful and interested listener, and I pointed out the cylinder
wherein the piston worked, the connecting rod which moved the crank,
and showed her how the valves which admitted the steam to the cylinder
were worked. I flattered myself, after the lesson I had given her, that
she was almost competent to run the dummy herself.
“I think it is real nice to ride in here, and see the machinery move,”
said she.
“So do I; and I enjoy it very much; more just now, I fear, than I ever
shall again.”
“Why so?” she asked, innocently.
I was not quite bold enough to explain the principal reason, and so I
replied that it was a new thing to me.
“I hope you will let me ride with you again, some time,” she added.
“With the greatest pleasure,” I replied. “Whenever you please.”
We ran into Middleport, and Miss Toppleton thanked me very prettily
for my kindness in showing her about the engine; and I really wished I
had it to do over again. By this time the students were turned out of
school, and all of them gathered around the dummy, anxious to begin the
afternoon’s fun. I had brought over my dinner, and I ate it before the
next trip. At one o’clock I was ready to start for Spangleport again.