A railroad station in a large city is hardly an inviting spot, at its
best; but at the close of a cheerless, blustering December day, when
biting draughts of wind come scurrying in at every open door, filling
the air with a gray compound of dust and fine snow; when passengers
tramp up and down the long platform, waiting impatiently for their
trains; when newsboys wander about with disconsolate, red faces, hands
in pockets and bundles of unsold papers under their ragged and shivering
arms; when, in general, human-kind presents itself as altogether a
frozen, forlorn, discouraged, and hopeless race, condemned to be swept
about on the nipping, dusty wind, like Francesca and her lover, at the
rate of thirty miles an hour--then the station becomes positively
unendurable.
So thought Bob Estabrook as he paced to and fro in the Boston & Albany
depot, traveling-bag in hand, on just such a night as I have described.
Beside him, locomotives puffed and plunged and backed on the shining
rails, as if they, too, felt compelled to trot up and down to keep
themselves warm, and in even tolerably good humor.
“Just my luck!” growled Bob with a misanthropic glare at a loud-voiced
family who were passing; “Christmas coming, two jolly Brighton parties
and an oratorio thrown up, and here am I, fired off to San Francisco. So
much for being junior member of a law firm. Wonder what”--
Here the ruffled current of his meditations ran plump against a rock,
and as suddenly diverged from its former course. The rock was no less
than a young person who at that moment approached with a gray-haired man
and inquired the way to the ticket office.
“Just beyond the waiting-room, on the right,” replied Bob, pointing to
the office and lifting his hat courteously, in response to the lady’s
question.
He watched them with growing interest as they followed his directions
and stood before the lighted window. The two silhouettes were decidedly
out of the common. The voice, whose delicate tones still lingered
pleasantly about Mr. Robert Estabrook’s fastidious ears, was an
individual voice, as distinguishable from any other he remembered as was
the owner’s bright face, the little fur collar beneath it, the
daintily-gloved hands, and the pretty brown traveling suit.
“Dignified old fellow!” mused Bob, irrelevantly, as the couple moved
toward the train gates. “Probably her father. Perhaps--hallo! by
George, they’re going on my car!”
With which breath of summer in his winter of discontent the young man
proceeded to finish his cigar, consult his watch, and, as the last
warning bell rang, step upon the platform of the already moving Pullman.
It must be admitted that as he entered he gave an expectant glance down
the aisle of the car; but the sombre curtains hanging from ceiling to
floor told no tales. Too sleepy to speculate and too learned in the
marvelous acoustic properties of a sleeping-car to engage the porter in
conversation on the subject, he found his berth, arranged himself for
the night with the nonchalance of an old traveler, and, laying his head
upon his vibrating atom of a pillow, was soon plunged into a dream at
least fifty miles long.