"He went in yesterday," explained Mrs. Carroll to Bob. "I suppose the train is late. It does seem as if they grow more and more uncertain, and when there are only two a day each way, it certainly is annoying, very. You wouldn't know what to make of so meagre an arrangement, would you, Katrina dear?" "There's the carriage now," said Bob. "The train couldn't have been much over an hour behind time; surely you wouldn't complain of that." "I feel as if I had been journeying for days," said John, sitting down, "and had seen the sights of far-distant worlds." "It's the obelisk in Court Square that makes you think that," suggested Sydney. "Or the battlements on the library building," added Bob. "Are there street-cars?" asked Katrina. "Street-cars? Why, child, there are street-cars to burn--electric ones, too. I felt grievously defrauded. I wanted a mule tram." "The mule is an unfashionable animal," said Mrs. Carroll. "Time was when a handsome pair of mules was considered not unsuitable to draw a gentleman's carriage." "The farmers aren't using them so much, either," said Bob. "They're too unreliable. Horses are cheaper, too." "I saw some very decent saddle-horses in town--of their kind." "What's their kind?" "Long-tailed single-footers, Katrina." "The easiest gait in the world," put in Bob, combatively, disregarding the tails. "It looks so. And not a Derby hat in the whole place except mine." "And not a silk one, except on colored coachmen," added Sydney, maliciously. "Did you drive about?" "I saw all the sights, dear Mrs. Carroll. I have done to a brown the Vanderbilt place, the Sunset Drive, and the junction of the Swannanoa and the French Broad. I flogged a rebellious horse to Gold View, and I scaled Beaumont and looked down into Chunn's Cove. I gazed at the--you will excuse me, I hope--faded exterior of a tobacco warehouse----" "The farmers don't grow much now," interpolated Bob. "So I was told. And I beheld with rapture the architecture of the Federal Building. That's the fullest beehive for its size, isn't it? Post-office, revenue office,--goodness knows what's in it!" "Is the United States Court on yet?" asked Bob. "Not being a victim, I don't know." "You don't have to be a victim to find that out. The whole town is filled with the rural population who are interested in the liquor cases,--and our rural population is unmistakable." "If that's the sign, then it isn't on, for only about half the town looked egregiously rural. Now I think of it, though, the court is going to sit day after to-morrow." "Of course. It's the first Monday in May, isn't it?" "Please ask me how I knew it. Thank you, Mrs. Carroll. I see that you are about to oblige me. Know then, good people, that this humble worm that you see before you has had the honor of occupying the same seat in the train with a minion of the law,--in fact, a revenue officer." "Coming out to-day?"